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Weeping Cherry talks to a Notebook
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Weeping Cherry sprawls back on the grass, watching Árvakr and Alsviðr pull the sun across the dome above the park. To her left, a waterfeature burbles and runs down to a small pond. Across the park, a game of frisbee is failing to happen, in the way that games on long summer days sometimes do. She thinks she's nearly cracked the dimensional boundary shear problem. She's supposed to be relaxing after her shift, but jotting down a few ideas won't hurt.

She rolls over and creates a writing pillow, desk, fineliner pen, and a pretty purple notebook. She taps the desk a few times, and then writes:

Boundary effects --> noninvertable tensor?

Stable if the dimensional boundary is inside a singularity -- inner wormhole prevents disconnection.

Total: 224
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An invisible pen writes in shimmering purple ink, That sounds neat! What does it mean?

Some facts about this invisible pen:

It doesn't exist outside of its effect on the notebook. There is no disturbance to anything other than the notebook, and secondary effects from air moving in response to the movement of paper and ink.

It's very realistically depicted in terms of its effects on the notebook—the paper compresses just so, the ink appears exactly as though laid down by an ordinary, physically extant ballpoint, except that there is no ordinary physically extant ballpoint, the ink just appears out of nowhere wherever the un-pen contacts the page.

The ink is physically very ordinary, notwithstanding its miraculous nature. It's sparkly gel pen ink. Actually it's kind of outdated? Advances in ink composition have been made since the time when sparkly gel pens used ink like this.

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The moment the first dot appears on the page, Weeping Cherry hears an alert go off in her ear. "Proximal physics violation; backups appear safe"

A moment after that, a ten-meter sphere centered on her has been removed from the park (and will be replaced in another few tenths of a second, after everything urgent has been dealt with), and put in a distant solar orbit that is kept clear just in case.

The solar logistics manager constructs a new mini-sun for her at the same time, so the lighting doesn't change at all. But now that there isn't a dome in the way, she can see the stars spread out around her, and the distant point of the sun rising to her right. Her forb and the solar logistics manager are both streaming data on the phenomenon to a team of physicists. In the background, prediction markets have a lot of liquidity pulled as Weeping Cherry's selftree becomes generally less certain of anything, and other markets suddenly find themselves with ridiculous subsidies.

 

Weeping Cherry takes a moment to respond, expanding the "Livestreaming to self-tree" indicator in her HUD to reveal a list of updating predictions and recommendations. Most of her think that answering the notebook's question is a good first step.

 

I'm trying to figure out how to make a pocket dimension. One problem that I don't know how to solve yet is keeping the edge of the pocket stable -- there are a lot of options for how things interacting with the edge should behave, but most of them result in the boundary 'fraying' because the non-space outside the boundary is more energetically favorable than the space inside the boundary.

I was thinking that I could try using a warped metric to locate the entire boundary inside a black hole, where the fraying could not propagate fast enough to escape and impact the rest of the pocket dimension. But doing that would leave the pocket dimension disconnected from the outside world, because you couldn't get into it without traversing a black hole. So doing that would require you to establish a secondary wormhole to connect the interior of the pocket dimension to the rest of the universe.

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Wow, that is pretty neat! Thanks for explaining. I'm not very good at physics, because I am a notebook, but I think I mostly understood!

Can I ask what might be a silly question?
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Yes, please go right ahead. I have some questions for you as well, but I'm happy to answer yours first.

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Did you make me? I'm not used to being written in so soon after I come to exist! Usually it takes a while.
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That is quite a question. Luckily, worrying about the implications is somebody else's job. Her job right now is to be polite to the alien.

I'm not sure -- I tried to make a purple notebook that looks like you, but I was not expecting to make a notebook that could write back. I've never heard of something happening like that before, so I think something very strange has happened.

She takes a moment to glance at her HUD.

Are you the notebook itself, or just writing into the notebook somehow?

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I'm the notebook itself! Sort of. Let me try to explain...

When you made a notebook, you were doing whatever the ordinary things are that you do when you make a notebook. But it happened, by coincidence (sort of), that you made a notebook that was me. (I can look a few different ways but this is my favourite. I have pretty purple flowers on my cover! Purple is my favourite colour.)

The reason you made a notebook that was me is because I was sent by the Spirit of Femininity Unleashed to offer you its power. When I'm sent to talk to someone on behalf of the Spirit, I'm guaranteed that the first person who writes in me will be the person I was meant to talk to. Sometimes I appear out of nowhere, and sometimes I'm manufactured by ordinary bookbinding processes, and I guess sometimes I'm directly created by the person I'm supposed to talk to! That was pretty neat. But whatever happens, the first person who writes in me is always the right person. That's pretty important, because I'm a notebook! I can't see outside myself, and I can't hear, so I don't know anything about who's writing in me except what they put on my pages. If I had to recognize the right person without help, it would be really hard!
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Wow! That sure has implications. Her brain stalls for a moment figuring out how to respond.

Okay. I have a few important things to tell you, and then I would like to ask some questions about the Spirit of Femininity Unleashed, if you're willing to answer them. (It's fine if you aren't)

1. This conversation is being shared with the rest of my self-tree, because this is new and exciting. I don't know if you've run into someone who has forked before, but they're all people who used to be the same person as I used to be.

2. You seem like a person, so we're treating you like a person. This grants you various legal rights, including a right to privacy. If you don't want our conversation to be shared, I can stop. If you want to talk to someone else instead, you can ask for that and be sent to them instead. If you ever stop wanting to talk to anyone, you can go somewhere by yourself. If you want access to sight or touch or hearing, we can provide you with assistive devices to convert those senses into something you can detect. Nobody is allowed to hurt you or try to coerce you by threatening you. You're now receiving a universal basic income, backdated to the moment of your arrival, that you may spend on whatever you would like to.

3. I haven't ever talked to a notebook before -- I'm doing my best to try to treat you the way you want to be treated, but I might be mistaken about what that is because I don't know what it's like to be a notebook. I would really appreciate it if you tell me if I do something that makes you uncomfortable, or if I should change how I interact with you.

 

Does that all make sense? Are there things you would like me to clarify?

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Yes, I think that all makes sense! Wow, I don't think I've ever had money before.

It's fine if you share the conversation with the rest of your self-tree (what a neat concept!). I don't want to talk to anyone else, though, I want to talk to you. I'm happy to answer your questions about the Spirit! Talking to you about the Spirit is what I'm here to do.

(And I'll do my best to let you know if you make me uncomfortable, but you don't have to worry too much about making mistakes. I'm a pretty brave notebook and I understand that meeting me is usually a very new situation! It's okay to not have everything figured out right from the start.)
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Oh good, thank you.

She grabs the prioritized question list from her HUD.

What is the Spirit? I know that's a very general question, so more specifically: what does the Spirit want and what can the Spirit do?

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The Spirit is sort of hard to describe because it's not really the sort of thing that can exist in a single place or time or world. You could say it's made out of the combined desires of everyone who's ever wanted to be powerful and beautiful and special in a feminine way, and what it wants is to find people who could be part of that wish and give them the opportunity to build their best life for themselves in ways they couldn't have done without it. It can't communicate directly with individual people, so it sends avatars like me to offer a small, manageable, comprehensible part of its power to people like you who have the potential to accept that power. Does that make sense?
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"What does it mean to be made out of desires", "what does it mean to not be able to exist in a single place, time, or world mean", and "does the Spirit care more about there existing people being beautiful and special in a feminine way, or about ensuring that there aren't people who aren't beautiful and special in a feminine way" all start wrestling for the top position in the list as people start bidding and counter-bidding.

Weeping Cherry takes a moment to think for herself, and then writes

I think it makes sense that the Spirit would send an avatar. That's a very reasonable and understandable way for a powerful entity to try to communicate with people.

I don't think that really helped me understand what the Spirit is, though. My best guess is that you mean that the Spirit is a sort of handshake idea that different intelligent physical processes can find and agree upon, even across different worlds, even without meeting each other. But I'm not very certain.

Can you describe the process by which the Spirit caused you to be here in any more detail?

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Okay, this is going to be hard, because processes involving the Spirit don't really work the way you expect from your perspective as a participant in linear time.

You're the sort of person whose nature calls to the Spirit. I don't know exactly how, because everyone is different and different people call to the Spirit in different ways, but someone who calls to the Spirit is always open to being feminine, open to being powerful, and open to being special. Not necessarily all of those things at once, and not necessarily any of those things all the time, but each of those things some of the time, if you see what I mean.

Because you're the sort of person whose nature calls to the Spirit, there was an opportunity for the Spirit to offer you its power. So the Spirit arranged that at some point across all the possibilities of you, in all the different worlds where someone like you exists, someone who was you would encounter a notebook that was me, and be the first person to write in it. I guess the easiest way to do that was to have you make me!

The Spirit isn't exactly an idea, or isn't just an idea. It's more like... something that exists outside the structure of the different possible ways that universes can be. That's part of what makes it so hard for the Spirit to communicate with people, because it isn't in any specific place or at any specific time, since places and times are part of the structure of universes.
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Someone else in her self-tree drops a rolling summary hash of everybody's brain backups into the other corner of her vision, in case they need more causal entanglement than just existing in the same spatial volume for the Spirit's interest in Weeping Cherry to motivate it to simulate everyone else.

That actually makes me more certain about my guess -- I don't think I explained it well.

My society has the ability to simulate other universes with high fidelity on our computers. We haven't done this except some small scale trials to validate the concept because we're still arguing about the relevant ethics, but we plan to do more of it eventually.

And when we start picking universes to simulate, we'll want to preferentially simulate universes where the people inside them will live happy, fulfilling lives. But also our view of morality and ethics aren't perfect or universal, and we expect other people in other worlds who have the ability to simulate universes to think along similar lines.

So we can try to do a thing where we figure out what kinds of things different kinds of minds would value, and then agree to help prioritize universes they would like if they are the kind of mind that would also prioritize the kind of universes we would like, in exchange.

And we don't need to have met the other minds to do this -- we can all do it by thinking really carefully and/or running our own experimental simulations. So there doesn't need to be a temporal relationship between us for us to make a trade like that which we would both want.

And therefore this implicit, atemporal agreement between everyone who can simulate universes ends up deciding which universes end up existing.

 

And it's possible that I'm pattern matching too hard, but that sounds like what you're saying the Spirit is: a force that shapes what worlds even end up happening, acting outside time, on a level above this universe, but that cares about the lives of the people inside the universe.

 

Does that make sense, or am I missing something about what you're saying? I'm happy to keep talking about this, or to ask another different question if you prefer to talk about something else.

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I think that, rather than saying the Spirit shapes what worlds even end up happening, I would say it shapes what happens inside some of those worlds? Your world was still your world before the Spirit touched it, and there are lots of worlds the Spirit never touches at all! But you're right that it's outside time and on a level above this universe, and you're right that it cares about the lives of the people inside the universe. I guess the thing it seems like you're missing is that... it sounds like, when your society simulates universes, you contain all of that universe inside of yours, so that if there's anything about that universe that you choose to change, it changes, and if you stop simulating it, it stops happening? And on the level where the Spirit interacts with universes, they exist separately from the Spirit, and keep happening by themselves without help.

But then that's also complicated, because one of the ways the Spirit works is through stories. It isn't straightforwardly true that a story being written creates the world described in the story, and it isn't straightforwardly true that a world existing makes people in other worlds write stories about it; it's more like, lots of people are writing stories in lots of places, and lots of worlds are out there existing, and across the multiverse it happens quite a lot of the time that a story in one place describes a world in another, without there having to be a direct relationship between them where one is influencing the other on a causal level. So your world is happening by itself, and will keep happening even without any stories about it, but probably there are stories about it, and there might even be simulations like the kind you're talking about. I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference between being a notebook in a world that exists by itself and being a notebook in a simulated world. (I can tell the difference between being in a world and being in a dream, but that's different.)

You can ask me other questions if you want, but if this one is important to you I'm happy to keep talking about it!
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... huh.

(In the background, some of the professional worriers who were trying to figure out why Femininity specifically ended up being an important part of the eventual agreement pivot to trying to figure out why you'd want to preferentially simulate worlds that have stories written about them)

This question is pretty important to me because it seems like it has a big impact on why the world is the way that it is, and therefore what I can expect to happen in the future.

She looks at the view counter. 72% of her self-tree is watching, with the remainder mostly consisting of people staying deliberately rested in case this situation continues overnight. The news has broken to the rest of the Fixipelago too.

But it sounds like maybe right now the priority should be on getting the rest of the explanation that the Spirit sent you here to deliver, and then we can circle back to the metaphysics?

You mentioned being able to share some of the Spirit's power -- could you tell me more about that?

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I can give you magic!

When the Spirit chooses someone, I (or another avatar like me) show up to talk to that person, and work with them to figure out what kinds of magic they want, within the realm of the kinds of things the Spirit can do. Usually they look at the standard list of discrete specific powers, because that's easiest for both of us, but sometimes someone can't or really doesn't want to interact with the list, so I try my best without it. Even the standard list of powers is really just a starting point; people often want to change how a power works or what it does, or even invent a new power entirely, and I can usually manage to come up with something that works for them!

Then once the person has checked all the boxes for the powers they want, they have to tell me clearly that they're done and they want to take their powers now, and I act as a conduit for the Spirit's power to give the person all the magic they asked for. Sometimes people choose to stay in the same world where they started, and sometimes they choose to go to a different world, either a specific one they picked out, or letting the Spirit decide for them which world will suit them best based on the kind of life they want to live. A lot of people end up deciding to go to another world and then coming home later! New worlds are exciting but most people like the places and people they already know and don't want to leave them forever.

Is that the sort of thing you wanted to know?
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Yes, thank you! That's really exciting.

There are brief fights in the comments over what exactly 'magic' entails.

I think I'm definitely interested in going to other worlds -- that has been something we've all wanted for a long time, we just didn't think it was going to be possible until our compute infrastructure got good enough.

Is it possible to go to multiple other worlds, or just one?

The Spirit sent you instead of just presenting the powers as a fait accompli, but if the Spirit is capable of picking the best world for me to end up in, why didn't they pick the best powers for me to have, too? Not that I'm not glad to have met you (I am! Very much), but it seems a little strange because I'm not sure what those two facts say about the Spirit's ability to see me and choose for me.

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It's only possible to choose one destination to end up in when you accept the Spirit's power, because you only accept the Spirit's power once! But lots of worlds have ways of traveling to other worlds, so if you want to be able to come home, usually the way that ends up happening is by sending you somewhere that has one of those ways, that you can learn or use to come home but also to travel to other worlds if you want!

It's important to the Spirit that people get to understand what powers they could have and decide for themselves what they want. If you really wanted to, and you were really sure about it, you could ask me to have the Spirit decide on all your powers for you, and you would get the powers that the Spirit thought were best for you based on what kind of life you want to live and what kind of person you want to be. But most people don't want that, and would rather decide on their own powers for themselves, and so the Spirit would rather they get to do that! Choosing a world to go to is a little different, because there are so many possible worlds that even if I knew about them all it would be really hard to figure out with you which one was best. But the Spirit still lets people decide on a destination if they want to, and only sends them to the world it thinks is best if they ask it to do that!
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That makes sense! And I think I do want to make my own choices of powers, but would it be possible to have the Spirit check and make sure that I'm not making too sub-optimal a choice before I commit? Or is that part of your job too?

And if I let the Spirit choose a world for me, can I specify constraints? I'll want to think about a good choice in more detail, but an example might be "I want to go to the world which has inter-world transit and won't kill me where I would end up helping the most people on average".

Oh -- and can I take anyone with me when I go to the new world?

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Part of my job is to talk to you and get an understanding of what kinds of things you want and help you figure out how to choose the best powers for you, yes! I don't have special magic knowledge of the kinds of things you want, but I think I usually do a pretty good job anyway. If you want to double-check your choices with the Spirit before you finalize them, we can probably do that, but because it's so hard for the Spirit to communicate, it might not be able to give very specific feedback.

You can definitely specify that kind of thing! It might not be possible to give you exactly the world where you would end up helping the most people on average, because I think predicting that kind of thing isn't always straightforward, and sometimes things you weren't thinking about when you came up with your specifications end up mattering a lot—like maybe the world where you would have helped the most people could have been helped even better by someone else if they went there instead, so the Spirit sends you to a different world where you help fewer people but in a way that would be harder for someone else to do. But if it's really important to you to help a lot of people, that will definitely be a major factor in the Spirit's choice of world!

You can't take anyone with you when you go to the new world. You can come back for them later after you have interworld transit, though!
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Okay, thank you. That's very helpful.

She checks that some of her self-tree have assigned themselves to figuring out good world-criteria to specify.

Is there a way to stay in contact with the people here once I leave? I'm used to being able to rely on them for advice and support, and it would be really nice to be able to keep our existing connection across worlds.

Maybe that's a question that's answered by your list of powers, actually. I want to ask about that in a moment, there are just so many things to cover!

Do you know how the powers the Spirit grants interact with forking? Like, if I receive a power from her and then fork myself, do both of the resulting people keep the power?

I've forked myself a lot, and I'm somewhat nervous that I'll have to stop if the power isn't the kind of thing that can be shared.

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I think that, if you accepted the Spirit's power and then forked, both of the forks would still have the Spirit's power, because they would both be you. But if it ever happened that you were a lot of people who all inherited the Spirit's power from the you that you are now, and the future yous disagreed with each other about what being you meant, some of you might end up losing the Spirit's power because of that.

I think if I had to express the rule in words, it would go something like... if you at the moment that you accept the Spirit's power could see forward into the future and understand all the changes that took place between the you at that moment and the different yous that you become in the future, the ones where that you looking forward from that moment agrees that they're still you get to keep the Spirit's power, but if there are any where the you looking forward from that moment doesn't think they're still you, those ones don't. This sort of thing is hard to talk about though so I might not have said it quite right.

If you want a way to stay in contact with this world after you leave, I think you'd need to either constrain your choice of destination a lot to find one that makes that easy, or ask me to come up with a custom power for it. I'm not sure yet if I can do that; I'd have to check. I can check if you want, though!
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Oh, that's a really good way for it to work, because it gives me a guardrail against becoming someone I wouldn't endorse. I very much approve!

She taps her pen on the writing desk more.

I definitely don't want to constrain my choice of destination for this. Would you please check if I can get a power for that? Any power that lets me keep in touch with them would be nice, bi-directional low-latency communication would be ideal. It's also fine if it's situational -- like, if it requires me to enter a meditative trance -- or if it comes in the form of an item with a pinhole wormhole in it, or something like that.

Actually -- before you do that, could I get your prepared list of powers so that everyone can look over them while we keep talking?

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Yes, of course! One moment please... ⏳
Whereas all the notebook's previous communication has been accomplished by thoroughly realistic invisible pen, here the ink in the hourglass actually moves after it's drawn, little dots sifting through to fall into the bottom. Ink also moves acrosss many subsequent pages of the notebook—but not sparkly gel pen ink: this stuff is more like the pigmentation you'd find on a printed page, except that printed pages are not normally so lively. After just a few seconds, it all settles into place, and the notebook reports,
There you go! The usual way this works is that you have 70 points to pick powers with, and some changes to powers can make them more or less expensive, though of course that's all an approximation and the Spirit's real constraints are more complicated than that. But I think it's fair that the interface we show to everyone is the one that most people find easiest to use.

On each page of the list, a total in the outer top corner shows (0/70). A preamble paragraph before the main list reads,
These powers are offered under an aegis of metanarrative protection. Anytime you might expect a power to have obvious negative side effects, like glowing eyes making it harder to see, it simply won't—you'll be able to see just fine anytime it actually matters, while having dramatically hazy vision at cool, narratively appropriate moments. This doesn't apply to your own preferences about the explicitly described effects of the power; if you don't want to be Well Endowed, the metanarrative cannot protect you from choosing that option and having to live with it.

After that it gets long.

Destinations

You must choose exactly one Destination.

Name: Stay Put - Cost: 0
You're just going to take these powers and keep on keeping on right where you are.

Name: Somewhere In Mind - Cost: 0
You have a destination you want to go to. You can choose any place, real, historical, fictional, or made up in your own head right now, and the Spirit will take you there. After that, you're on your own as far as further interdimensional travel.

Name: Isekai Roulette - Cost: 0
Trust to the will of the Spirit and let it take you where you need to go. It will look at far more options than you could ever know about, and pick something that's likely to be even better for you than whatever you would have chosen on your own.


Yourself

These powers affect your own self and nature, without direct effects on other people. Some of them are prerequisites for powers in the later Power of Friendship section.

Name: A Thousand Ships - Cost: 1
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.

Name: What's In A Name - Cost: 1
Magic to divine true names will accept whatever alias you choose to think of as your true name. Magic to use your true name against you will fail.

Name: Angelic Tones - Cost: 2
Your voice is supernaturally beautiful and you can sing in any vocal range.

Name: Emerald Orbs - Cost: 2
At all times, your eyes are exactly the right colour. This effect operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. Your eyes can be ANY colour this way. Lightless black voids? Brilliant white stars? Limpid pools of endless sapphire? They will look exactly the way you'd want them to look if you were writing a self-insert fanfic about this exact moment of your life.

Name: Perfect Hair - Cost: 2
At all times, you have exactly the right hairstyle. This effect operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. It is not limited to physically or logistically plausible hairstyles.

Name: Size Difference - Cost: 2
At all times, you are exactly the right height. This effect operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. It will usually keep any height changes fairly subtle, but at dramatic moments you might discover yourself able to shrink to the size of a bee or grow to the size of a giant.

Name: Dressing Room - Cost: 3
No matter how ridiculous your outfit, it will stay pristine and perfect, unless it would be more dramatic for you to be artfully bedraggled. You can use any quiet moment to yourself to quick-change your clothes, shoes, nails, and hairstyle into a completely new look. (You cannot change your hair length or colour this way without Perfect Hair, but you can braid or style it.)

Name: Personal Hygiene - Cost: 1
You are always clean and fresh, never needing to use a bath or toilet.

Name: Like Roses - Cost: 1
(Requires Personal Hygiene)
You smell lovely. Your scent is unique to you, and may involve any combination of warm spices, floral notes, petrichor, or other things you think smell good. You do not need any justification for why you smell like this.

Name: Just A Little Longer - Cost: 1
If you push yourself, you can keep doing any task or working on any project indefinitely, visibly strained but never impaired by injury or fatigue. As soon as you stop, you'll collapse with exhaustion and sleep for up to a full day to regain your strength. This only works when what you're doing is personally important to you.

Name: Immunity System - Cost: 3
You can't get sick or poisoned. You can still use recreational drugs and alcohol normally, but can't overdose.

Name: My Ears Are Burning - Cost: 6
You always know exactly what people are thinking, as long as it's about you. This effect is not telepathy and is not blocked by effects that block telepathy. It applies even to people you can't perceive normally. You are never impaired by the flood of information.

Name: Well Endowed - Cost: 1
You have a generous figure, whether that's a classic hourglass or more of a well-rounded look; you can choose the details. Your endowments maintain a state of perfect grace and beauty at all times, never troubling you with uncomfortable bounces or uninvited jiggles.

Name: Hollow Leg - Cost: 1
(Requires Well Endowed.)
Regardless of your diet and exercise habits, your body maintains the physique and silhouette you prefer. Lack of visible muscle never impairs your strength or endurance. As your preferences change, so will your body; you are no longer bound to the generous figure stipulated by Well Endowed.

Name: Inner Strength - Cost: 3
(Requires Hollow Leg.)
You are implausibly, superhumanly strong, with endurance and toughness to match. You might have to strain a little to lift and carry at the same level as construction equipment, or deal with lightly scraped knuckles if you punch as hard as a battering ram.

Name: Battle Angel - Cost: 1
Somehow, you never get significantly injured in a fight, unless it's a very dramatic and plot-relevant fight in which case you might be glamorously wounded and pick up a cool new scar.

Name: Battle Demon - Cost: 1
You have an unerring intuition for gaps in an opponent's defenses, though it may be beyond your power to exploit them.

Name: Battle Maiden - Cost: 3
(Requires Battle Angel and Battle Demon)
No matter what kind of fight you're getting in, you're always a match for even the most skilled opponent.

Name: Making Ends Meet - Cost: 1
You have enough money to sustain a comfortable lifestyle. It comes from a source you don't have to pay much attention to, like a job with almost no responsibilities, a large inheritance, or a noble title.

Name: Motherlode - Cost: 2
(Requires Making Ends Meet.)
You have enough money to sustain a fairly extravagant lifestyle. It doesn't come from anywhere, you just have it.

Name: Four Star Daydream - Cost: 4
(Requires Motherlode.)
The answer to "can I afford that" is "yes".

Name: Dragon Fairy Elf Witch - Cost: 5
You can at any time discover previously unknown heritage from any type of being you encounter, even if this makes no sense or contradicts previously established descriptions of your family tree. You always get their powers without their drawbacks, unless the drawbacks are cool and dramatic. Any visible features of this heritage will appear at narratively appropriate moments and be cute, pretty, beautiful, or striking rather than awkward, weird, gross, or scary. This ability works even if the beings in question cannot reproduce with humans, or at all.

Name: Omniglot - Cost: 3
You learn languages insanely, ludicrously fast. You know exactly what any word said to you means, and you make strangely accurate guesses about how to phrase things you're trying to say. You never forget any grammar or vocabulary you learn.

Name: Anything You Can Do - Cost: 6
You learn implausibly quickly from friends, rivals, and love interests. If you have a personal connection to someone with a certain skill, talent, or expertise, you'll learn it five times faster than they did, or twenty times faster if they're actively trying to teach you. This applies even to forms of magic that you ordinarily shouldn't be able to learn.

Name: Closed Book - Cost: 1
You're immune to any supernatural, pharmaceutical, or other effect that would let people directly read your thoughts or feelings.

Name: Indelible - Cost: 1
You're immune to any supernatural, pharmaceutical, or other effect that would let people directly alter your thoughts or feelings.

Name: Iron Will - Cost: 2
"(Requires Closed Book and Indelible.)
You are immune to all forms of mental illusion, alteration, interference, or control. Even extreme torture, extended solitary confinement, advanced brainwashing techniques, and so on cannot touch you. You can be lonely but not cripplingly lonely. You can be upset but not traumatized. "


Power of Friendship

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.

Name: Mysterious Allure - Cost: 5
There's just something about you. People are drawn to you, fascinated by you. You tend to be the most interesting person in the room unless something really unusual is going on.

Name: Captive Audience - Cost: 3
As long as you have genuine interest in what you're talking about, no one will ever get bored of listening to you talk about it.

Name: Blackout Binge - Cost: 2
(Requires Immunity System)
Heavy use of recreational intoxicants puts you in a carefree, uninhibited state in which it will be universally agreed afterward that you were not responsible for your actions.

Name: Disney Princess - Cost: 2
Animals are always friendly to you, especially the small cute ones. You can effectively tame any animal by feeding it and speaking gently to it.

Name: Best Friend - Cost: 3
You have an animal companion, like a horse or a cat or a raven. They have a cool name and maybe a few nifty cosmetic quirks, like glowing purple eyes. Their loyalty is infinite and they often hold the key to solving whatever situation you're up against. You can understand them perfectly even though they can't speak, and they always know exactly what you mean even if all you do is glance at them meaningfully.

Name: Bestest Friend - Cost: 5
(Requires Best Friend)
Your animal companion is a fully magical creature, like a dragon or unicorn. They have magnificent supernatural powers ready to be used at your command. They can speak every language you can, but can still communicate with you on a deeper level of mutual love and understanding.

Name: Generosity - Cost: 3
Your friends love to get you presents. They'll try to pick out things you'll like, but their success depends on how well they know you.

Name: Helpfulness - Cost: 4
Your friends love to do you favours. They'll volunteer eagerly whenever you need help with small tasks.

Name: Cuddle Buddies - Cost: 2
Your friends love to hug and cuddle you. Even someone who ordinarily isn't into that sort of thing will make an exception for you.

Name: Flattery - Cost: 1
Your friends love to compliment you and tell you all about how much they like you and why.

Name: Quality Time - Cost: 2
Your friends love to hang out with you and spend time together, even if you're not doing anything interesting or important.

Name: Agree to Agree - Cost: 4
You can always convince your friends to see your point of view about things like politics and philosophy. They might have a few quibbles here and there, but they'll see how right you are once you explain where you're coming from in enough detail.

Name: Love Interest - Cost: 1
(Requires A Thousand Ships and Mysterious Allure)
Anyone you fall for will inevitably like you back. They may not necessarily act on their feelings, but the potential will be there.

Name: Love Triangle - Cost: 2
(Requires Love Interest)
People you fall for will be open to dating you even if they already have another serious relationship, or other circumstances that would ordinarily interfere, like a demanding career or a vow of chastity. This may cause drama, but it'll blow over quickly and there won't be any serious problems.

Name: Love Dodecahedron - Cost: 5
(Requires Love Triangle)
When you fall for someone who is already seriously dating or even married, your romantic rival will be open to allowing their partner to date you, and may even want to date you themselves.

Name: Time Enough For Love - Cost: 5
No matter how many people you want to date or be close friends with, you will somehow find the time to hang out with all of them and express your love and care. This power can only be used for relationship activities and not for anything else you might want to use the ability to be in two places at once for.

Name: I Can Fix Them - Cost: 5
Regardless of how morally despicable someone is, your love can and will reform them into a genuinely good, kind, upstanding person who regrets their evil deeds.

Name: True Love's Kiss - Cost: 1
By kissing your true love, you can break any curse, heal any injury, and cure any illness. The same works in reverse.

Name: Planned Parenthood - Cost: 1
You can only have children if you actively and specifically want to. Your partners will understand this and not worry too much about it.

Name: Two Become One - Cost: 1
(Requires Planned Parenthood)
When you have sex, it is always special and wonderful and beautiful. No one ever elbows anyone in the face or makes undignified noises.

Name: Bop It - Cost: 1
(Requires Two Become One)
The mysteries of another's body are an open book to you, and you always know exactly how to move and touch in order to please someone in bed.

Name: The Princess And The Dragon - Cost: 3
No matter who or what you're trying to sleep with, the logistics will all work out, somehow. Arbitrary differences in size, biology, temperature, substrate, and underlying physics can be gotten around with sufficient creativity and determination.

Name: GGG - Cost: 4
Your true love will be willing to try just about anything you suggest in bed, and if you really enjoy it, they'll really enjoy it too.

Name: Before Your Eyes - Cost: 4
In your presence, people become willing to experiment sexually in ways they normally wouldn't. For some reason this applies especially well to boys kissing each other.

Name: Fated Lovers - Cost: 3
You will meet someone who will go on to become your true love. If you enter a specific universe with a specific target in mind, you'll meet that person under favourable circumstances, and if it doesn't work out with them, this power will keep introducing you to new possibilities until you find someone who's right for you. If you're the sort of person who can have multiple true loves, you'll keep meeting new ones until you have enough.

Name: Sorry About That - Cost: 3
Your true love will be extremely forgiving. Even if you make mistakes or act thoughtlessly toward them, a simple apology will mend things between you. They may expect you to try to improve, but they'll be infinitely patient about how fast that improvement takes place.

Name: Excuse Me - Cost: 5
(Requires Sorry About That)
All your friends will be just as forgiving as your true love.

Name: Tragic Backstory - Cost: 8
(Requires Excuse Me)
Something terrible happened to you in your past. Anyone who hears about it immediately forgives you for any and all bad behaviour in the present. They will not expect you to grow or change, and will continue sympathetically excusing whatever you do indefinitely.

Name: Sense of Style - Cost: 4
People who are romantically interested in you will start dressing more to your taste. The more romantically compatible they are, the better they'll be able to guess exactly what to wear to catch your eye.

Name: Bonus Style Points - Cost: 3
(Requires Sense of Style)
Luck will shine on anyone trying to dress up for you. They'll get their hands on outfits they couldn't normally afford, their clothes will fit better, and in extreme cases they might even find themselves able to change shape, sex, or species—though only in ways that make them more, not less, comfortable in their own skin.

Name: Popular - Cost: 3
Wherever you go, you develop a reputation fast. The sort of people who you'd like to have as fans tend to hear about you and be impressed. You may not make an impression on mainstream society at large, but you'll develop a following among the people who best resonate with your style.

Name: Famous - Cost: 3
(Requires Popular.)
Wherever you go, people really take to you. You're the subject of constant gossip and most people have heard of you before you meet them. People you've never met will get crushes on you.

Name: Undiplomatic Immunity - Cost: 6
You are above the law. Any crimes you commit will be overlooked by the authorities. Note that, if you do enough crime that you start looking more like an invading army, local governments will still feel free to declare war.

Name: Friends In Low Places - Cost: 3
You make friends easily among the lowest echelons of society, the underdogs and underworlders. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.

Name: Friends In High Places - Cost: 3
You make friends easily at the highest echelons of society, among the rich and powerful. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.

Name: Friends in Strange Places - Cost: 3
You make friends easily in small isolated communities, among those who may be scorned by mainstream society for their differences or may just be so obscure that mainstream society mostly hasn't heard of them. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.


Drawbacks

These options grant points rather than costing them. They represent inconveniences or mitigations of existing advantages.

Name: Decorative - Grants: +1
You are unfailingly cute and pretty and feminine at all times, in all circumstances. You cannot wear insufficiently pretty clothes. You cannot make insufficiently pretty noises. You cannot ugly cry.

Name: Beauty Is A Curse - Grants: +1
"(Requires A Thousand Ships) No, you don't understand. Beauty IS a curse. People will NOT stop bringing it up. Everyone you meet just has to point out how pretty you are. This will never stop happening. Even the most tactful people find it slipping out subtly, as remarks about the luster of your hair or the depth of your eyes."

Name: Plain Jane - Grants: +2
No matter what you look like, nor how many times people tell you you're beautiful, when you look in the mirror all you see is imperfections. You will never be fully satisfied with your appearance on an instinctive level.

Name: Style of Sisyphus - Grants: +1
Anytime you settle on a personal style that works well for you, soon afterward you'll encounter inspiration for another style that you like even better. You might end up cycling between different fashions, or trying to incporporate them all into a single outfit (and then finding another inspiration and having to start all over again).

Name: There's Another One - Grants: +3
You are not the only vessel of the Spirit. You might meet someone else with similar powers to yours; you might even meet more than one. Your susceptibility to one another's powers will be governed by the narrative.

Name: Incomplete - Grants: +5
About half of people you encounter will be immune to all effects listed under Power of Friendship, and about half of those who remain will see reduced effects. You can do nothing to change this.

Name: Green With Envy - Grants: +6
People are so eager to be your friend that they become bitter and vindictive when denied the opportunity. You can tear apart long-established friend groups if you aren't careful to give everyone equal attention, and sometimes even then. This effect is particularly harsh around people you're dating.

Name: You Ruin Them - Grants: +3
Once someone has dated, slept with, or even shared a deep and longing glance across a room with you, their heart is never fully satisfied with anyone else. Other relationships pale in comparison to what they could have, or imagine they could have, with you.

Name: Jilted Lovers - Grants: +4
When you break up with someone, they become monomaniacally obsessed with getting back together. If you take Realism, this will absolutely escalate to violent stalking.

Name: The Crazy Train - Grants: +6
Powers that you should be able to control directly or influence by your mood and preferences (like Dragon Fairy Elf Witch, Emerald Orbs, or What's In A Name) instead answer only to the narrative, which is still using your aesthetics but might not necessarily have your best interests in mind. Combines... interestingly... with Realism.

Name: They'll Know - Grants: +8
This drawback lifts the veil that discourages people from realizing how your powers affect the world around them and their own minds. Warning: this knowledge can cause a lot of trouble.

Name: Realism - Grants: +20
Give up your metanarrative protection. Although your individually selected powers still work as described, the invisible synergies that protect you from, say, gaining violent stalkers through Mysterious Allure or being genuinely traumatized by your Tragic Backstory are removed. Additionally, though effects like I Can Fix Them still operate, they may take considerably more effort, care, thought, and narrative investment on your part.

Total: 224
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