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Mary Sue Rosy
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This notebook is so breathtakingly nonjudgmental.
Thanks, you're a star.
Moving on, the value add of I Can Help Them in this situation is fairly self-explanatory, and the two other powers in its little cluster are still blatantly worse.

True Love's Kiss and Eternal Love are still the checkmarkiest of checkmarks, and The Rescuer is, she thinks, one of those thorny questions she should talk about on her next pass.

Providential Parenthood... now that it's come up, she should really ask the obvious clarifying question.
Is Providential Parenthood a defense of me, which can therefore fail against my love interests, or is it more like a defense of my future children, which hopefully wouldn't?
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A defense of your future children is a good way to put it!

I would say that... if you think of having children when you're not ready for them as mostly a harm to you, then your powers will think of it that way. But if you think of it as mostly a harm to your future children, then that's how your powers will see it.
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...

She's gotta ask. She can't not ask. It would be wildly irresponsible not to ask. She has only herself to blame for her life having come to a place where she needs to write these words into the cosmic notebook and wait for it to answer them.

If I were to, say, get mind-controlled into wanting children with someone when actually having children with them was a terrible idea, would Providential Parenthood go with what I wanted and thought was reasonable in the moment, or the sort of hypothetical opinions of my non-mind-controlled self?
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In that sort of situation, it's your hypothetical unmodified opinions that count for the most. And since you took The Crazy Train, that's even more true for you than usual.
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Okay, good. Thank you.
Anyway. Laugh Together! A great power to have and a steal at one point. Bop It, an entirely reasonable thing to have in the heart tier... though given how crowded the heart tier is getting what with her almost bumping up the Friend, she thinks for a second and then gives Bop It a slash. It's nice to have but it's not that nice.

The Princess And The Dragon, on the other hand, is clearly, absolutely necessary for any reasonable person who plans to go adventuring through the multiverse and potentially find love in an alien world. Who would do a thing like that and not take this power???

Opening Up is still a solid slash tier. In a way it's kind of like an extension of Laugh Together that's a little more powerful and has better guarantees at the cost of being fully four times more expensive.

Fated Lovers, now... aha, she never did give it a mark, did she. She puts it in heart tier. Then she thinks for a second and upgrades it to checkmark. It's her way of saying to herself that, yes, she's really going all-in on this dark Disney gig. The thing about taking Fated Lovers in the context of Love Is A Battlefield is that it means she can become vulnerable to someone for love reasons without even knowing they're a love interest, which, yes, obviously, is absolutely terrifying, but it's a correct, ego-syntonic kind of terror. Fated Lovers belongs next to Love Is A Battlefield, even though Love Is A Battlefield somehow turned out not to require it.

Right.

Fated Friends is still a no, Sorry Please Excuse My Tragic Backstory is still a great big pile of no, Sense of Style and Bonus Style Points are still... just sort of fine, really...

Like a Mirror is slash tier right now. She takes a moment to scrutinize it. Is slash tier really where it belongs? Should she bump it up, and its drawback with it, to spend a point on eventually meeting alternate versions of herself who, let's face it, may or may not even exist? The power absolutely doesn't guarantee that they exist.

...

How likely is it that I actually have doubles the way Like a Mirror says?
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Generally speaking, it's pretty likely! The sort of person who gets chosen by the Spirit is often the sort of person who appears in multiple worlds. And I have a bit of an inkling, from the situation we're in right now, that... how do I put this...

If you do have doubles, then it makes a lot of sense that this version of you would be the one out of all of them who meets me, because this version of you pretty clearly needs help right now, what with the lack of physical existence and all. If you don't have doubles, then the fact that I'm here for you doesn't necessarily mean anything because this is the only you that I could ever have met. But if you do have doubles, then it's obvious why I would have met this particular you. So in a way, it's more likely that you have doubles because you're meeting me here and now.

I guess it is also the case that out of all the times in your one specific life when I could have met you, this is still the one where you needed me most. But, I don't know, I think it makes sense to expect doubles a little more when you're obviously the one double who would have been chosen out of almost any set of doubles unless one of the other ones is having a really unimaginably hard time. Do you see what I mean?
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She rereads that a couple of times, then writes,
Yeah, I think I do. Okay. So no guarantees, but probably somewhere? Okay.
That sounds... like she's right to hold off on taking Like a Mirror. If she has doubles she's excited to meet them, but she's also content to let it happen naturally if it's going to happen.

Chaser Six When is still very important. And she almost feels even better about taking it now that she's on The Crazy Train. It's going to be up to her hypothetical opinions and the sense of narrative when she duplicates herself, which means that she won't end up spamming the universe with thousands of Rosies unless her hypothetical opinions and the sense of narrative are in agreement that that's the right move. Cool.

Severance isn't something she wants or needs.

Popular... is slash tier bordering on heart tier, she thinks, except that it is still redundant with Five Star Daydream, and heart tier is still pretty crowded. She'll leave it where it is for now.

Famous and Undiplomatic Immunity can stay blank.

Friends In Assorted Places would all be great powers to have if they weren't, collectively, nine entire points of great power. And... okay, she can admit it to herself... she doesn't really want to be magically super-skilled at moving through society? She would kind of prefer to leave that sort of thing to her sister who is better at it.

...on the other hand, that is an opinion formed in a universe where she was raised to be skilled at moving through society and has grown up under the pressure of the expectation that she inherit her family's magical and political power and wield it as skillfully as her mother and grandmother before her. So... maybe, actually, she will bump these up to slash tier, in recognition of the fact that it would actually be pretty bad to land in a world where the reason she doesn't move skillfully through society is because she doesn't know how rather than because she prefers to lurk in the shadows.

Vending Machine is still a baffling option.

Okay. She gives the Drawbacks a quick skim. It still feels like they're all right where they should be.

Time to start over...? Time to write her thoughts out 'loud' for the notebook to see?



Maybe she'll take a minute to collect herself first.
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Partway into that minute, the notebook writes,
I've come up with some more drawbacks for you! They're... not any of the things you asked for... but I still think you will like them.


Name: That's How It Goes - Grants: +3 ☐
(Requires Secret Identity and The Crazy Train)
Rather than being confined to when you're in a specific universe, the power suppression from Secret Identity operates on the same narrative sensibility that drives your voluntary powers: some or all of your powers may be suppressed whenever the story demands it, and return later at an appropriate time. This can synergize with Dramatic Damsel to make your interludes as a damsel significantly more dramatic.


Name: Live The Role - Grants: +4 ☐
(Requires That's How It Goes and Selective Memory)
Your memories, including but not limited to memories of your own powers, may be altered or suppressed at the discretion of the narrative. In general, the story will usually let you have your memories back eventually; if you take It Gets Better, you can be sure that you will someday recover anything you've lost that you would want to regain.
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Thank you, this is exactly the kind of deranged and manifestly unsafe nonsense that I'm into.
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I know you're probably just being funny, but are you sure that's how you want to talk about the things that make you happy?
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...she thinks that over, leaving the new drawbacks untouched for now because this seems more important than getting them all checked right away.

No, I actually think it's pretty important to keep in mind that... when I'm choosing how to live my real actual life based on narrative sensibilities like these, I'm inviting real actual harm into my future. Things could go badly for me in ways that aren't actually funny at all. I'm being flippant about it, but the choices I'm making are unsafe. I'm making them on purpose because they're unsafe.

A lot of times, as I've gone over this list, I've specifically avoided a power because it felt like it would make me safer than I really want to be. And I think it would be a disservice to myself to dance around that and euphemize and pretend like all choices are equally reasonable and valid and have equally good outcomes, when, like... I would probably get better outcomes by at least some metrics if I did something else? I'm choosing to be unsafe because I care about living the right life for me more than I care about safety. It would be a really bad idea to lose sight of that and start feeling like of course every choice I make is going to lead to me having a perfectly wonderful time. I am choosing to give up the future where I have a perfectly wonderful time forever because it would be, what was the thing you said earlier...


She looks it up; it's all right there, the text of their entire conversation so far. Handy, really. When she finds it, she circles it: building a carefully crafted structure out of things you don't enjoy to try to make a safe haven for the best life you think you can get that's protected by the sacrifice of the best life you could dream of.

It would be that. Exactly that. It would be making my safety into a cage that traps me away from the life I want to live.

But that doesn't mean there isn't a tradeoff, and I want to remain very conscious of exactly what tradeoff I'm making.
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The notebook doesn't respond right away; after a few seconds, with slower handwriting than usual, it writes,
I think I see what you mean. And I think it's very wise of you to think that way.
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She draws a heart at the end of that sentence, then checks That's How It Goes and Live The Role and finds Secret Identity to check it off too and get rid of the missing-prerequisite warnings.

Heart tier now stands at 107/121 and she still has more custom drawbacks coming, or at least she does if the notebook can come up with anything for her vague "too many appearance powers" prompt. Wow, sitting pretty. Her narrative sensibilities are alarmingly lucrative.

Okay. Back to the top of the list she goes.

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All right, I think I'm going to just... write down my thoughts on each option as I come to it, and try to be reasonably succinct while hitting the important parts, and let you interrupt whenever you have something to say, sound good?
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That sounds perfect! ♡
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All right, here goes.


She takes an imaginary deep breath and steadies her mental pen, and starts from the top.

Stay Put: kills me. Bad.
Somewhere In Mind: takes me back to my family, but I think Isekai Roulette is better even though I really miss my family.
Isekai Roulette: lets me wander the multiverse for a bit picking up cool stuff before I go home to my family and shower them with cool stuff.


So far so straightforward. Next section.

A Thousand/Hundred Ships: I like Hundred better because, while I like being pretty, it's really important to me to be pretty in the ways I want, way way more important than it is to be The Prettiest.

What's In A Name: I was reluctant to take this one at first because, actually, the world I come from has name magic, and... I've always thought it would be kind of a romantic gesture, to tell someone my full name, and become vulnerable to them in that way? And I'd hate to have that taken away from me. But now I have Love Is A Battlefield and don't need to worry about that, so it seems like just good sense to make sure most other people can't use it against me!

Angelic Tones, Emerald Orbs: these are... the kind of thing that is cool, but not a specific kind of that kind of thing that I'm specifically into, I guess I would say? I've never been especially into singing, and don't have an image of myself as a great singer or a daydream about being a better one, or anything. And I think I mostly like my eyes and wouldn't want to change them around much.
Perfect Hair: I liked this one a lot at first because it just seems so convenient and fun and cool and, you know, magical, but "not limited to physically or logistically plausible hairstyles" gave me pause after I thought a bit about it.
I might bump those three up higher now that I have room for more stuff, but I want to think it over a bunch first.

Size Difference: ...part of really liking the thought of being vulnerable to a love interest is really liking the thought of being smaller than them, maybe even a lot smaller. (Actually, you've been really generous with the custom drawbacks, but I wonder... could you maybe add one for specifically letting my love interests control my appearance powers even when I can't? I don't know, it's really niche and maybe it's silly to ask for, but...)
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I don't think that's silly at all! I think it's very sweet to want your love interests to be able to have the kind of intimacy with you that comes from vulnerability and power. I'll think about it and try to come up with something! It might not be worth very many points, but I think that will probably be okay.
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Is it sweet, or is it just that you came up with a really sweet way to put it? ♡

Anyway, back to the list...

I love Dressing Room. I love the convenience and the power it offers.
Pocket Dimension: it's so good? It's so cheap and so good?
Undressing Room: terrifies me a little, if I'm honest. I don't want to become someone who can never again have the experience of putting on a specific piece of clothing and then having that clothing on me. That's too... divorced from reality, for me.

Personal Hygiene: good, cheap, convenient.
Like Roses: up there with Angelic Tones and Emerald Orbs, though... maybe I'll bump it a tiny bit higher?
She erases the slash and puts down a heart instead.
Just A Little Longer: so useful!
Immunity System: so useful!!
Breathe Easy: I'm pretty divided on this one. It's definitely handy to have, but I don't know if it's really worth that point? How many times in my interdimensional career am I going to be required to breathe vacuum? And what if I'm not sure I want to succeed at it every single time? I guess that's what Love Is A Battlefield is for. I'll bump this one up too.
She hearts it.
My Ears Are Burning: I would never stop screaming internally. I might never stop screaming externally. I just don't want this.

Well Endowed: I'm not thrilled about it by itself but it makes sense as a lead-in to Hollow Leg and I really want Hollow Leg, so.
Hollow Leg: it just makes my body be the shape that I want! It's so good!!
Inner Strength: I'm conflicted again... I don't really think I want being physically superhumanly strong to be the thing that I'm about? But it would also be so handy in so many possible circumstances... I'm leaving it on slash tier for now, but I definitely want to think more about this one.
Lightfoot: no qualms about this one. I just really like it.

Battle Angel and following: I keep going back and forth about these. Like with Inner Strength, I don't want fighting to be what I'm about. But I also want to be able to hold my own... I'll bump these back up to heart tier.
Heart heart heart.
I'm not really that into Gloryseeker. I thought it was kind of neat at first, but then I realized that anything I could achieve through Gloryseeker, I could achieve more ego-syntonically through It Gets Better and lots of practice doing cool stunts.
Pacifist: it's just silly, honestly. I mean, not that I don't appreciate it. But it's not for me.

Making Ends Meet through Five Star Daydream: honestly most of the reason I'm taking these is because Five Star Daydream just sounds really, really cool. Also, I will admit, I'm used to being rich and would struggle to adapt to not having any money because I landed in an alien world with nothing but the magically generated clothes on my back and infinite gold bars in my pocket. Okay, I guess I'd probably be fine. You know what I mean.

Omniglot: I love languages and would love them even more if I could learn them at an incredible rate. Also seems handy for multiversal travel.
Anything You Can Do: I like learning things. I like having magic. I can see how some people might be upset about me having this power and using it to learn stuff from them, but I'm hoping You Can Teach Better will help mitigate that, and also I still want it.
Dragon Fairy Elf Witch: so the thing is, there is a lot of magic in my world that comes from people having supernatural bloodlines... this is a really obvious pick for that among other reasons. I do think I might yearn in my heart to be a dragon, a fairy, an elf, and a witch all at once.
Snowglobe and Unleash The Magic: less totally obviously necessary than DFEW, but still good and still things I want.

Soulbound: I just really want this to be a thing. I just really want the things I cherish and see as part of myself to really, truly become part of myself. I guess with all those drawbacks, I shouldn't look at any given power as really being a guarantee of anything except for It Gets Better? But... I think, even though I don't really have very much reason to trust the strange and inscrutable process that brought me here, I do actually trust you and the Spirit to not take Soulbound away from me without a really good reason.
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I think you're right about Soulbound being the sort of power that's unusually likely to stay with you unless there's a really good reason. I would say that, out of all the powers, the one that's the very most of a guarantee even against possible drawback interference is It Gets Better, and the second most is I Can Fix/Help Them, and Soulbound might just be the third.
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...you know, I wouldn't have thought to put I Can Fix/Help Them up there, but now that you mention it, it does seem to make an awful lot of sense. Okay, where was I...

Personal Space is one of those powers that makes me safe in ways I don't want to be safe. I'm really glad it exists and I hope it helps a lot of people who need it, and I don't want it and am kind of relieved I don't have to take it like I might if this whole process weren't so explicitly geared to let me get away with living my best life without regretting the choices that get me there.
Closed Book through Iron Will probably make me more safe than I want to be, but the more cool drawbacks you come up with to let me be messed with in ways I endorse and mostly not in ways I don't, the happier I am about taking stuff like this. I'll leave them with the question mark for now, though.

It Gets Better is the keystone of this whole operation and I absolutely could not do any of this without it. I would give it five checkmarks if that were a reasonable thing to do.

The Great Equalizer and Star-Straightened just kind of seem like they're cool and all but not worth the points from my perspective.


And that's the end of the Yourself section once again!
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You know, I wasn't sure about writing down all my thoughts for you, but it really does seem to be helping me clarify some things so far, and I bet it'll help even more later on. Thanks for suggesting it. ♡
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Thanks for going along with it! ♡ Seeing what you think of things and the kinds of considerations that are on your mind when weighing different powers really helps me figure out what kinds of things you want and what would be good to suggest for you.
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She puts a heart on the notebook's heart and heads into Powers of Friendship.

Mysterious Allure: I would maybe take this at one point, if it could turn off, but I think I'd put it at slash tier even so. I'm absolutely not taking it for five, that's nuts.
Captive Audience: It's neat and all but it's like Gloryseeker, I want to get good at this kind of thing through my own skill and talent and not by having a magic power for it.
Blackout Binge: no.

Disney Princess: I wasn't that into it at first but when I started thinking about it from the angle of the explicit Disney Princess aesthetic I got a lot more enthusiastic.
Best(est) friend: ...okay, these ones are hard. I keep coming back to them and I keep not being sure what to think, or what to ask in order to figure out what I think.

I guess, it's hard for me to imagine what having a Bestest Friend would be like? It's hard for me to imagine... how having a magical animal companion would affect me, what it would be like day to day, how it would change how I approach my life and what kinds of things I do?

I think maybe Ascended Friend gets me thinking along the lines of what if my Bestest Friend was also my sketchy love interest, and I think that could be very cool, but I don't know what that would really look like, and I might rather meet my sketchy love interests more organically. Plus, you know, being infinitely loyal to me is not exactly the sketchy love interest vibe. And now that I'm thinking about sketchy love interests, I'm realizing that a Bestest Friend would be in a vulnerable position on that front in much the same way a child might, and I'm starting to get concerned. I think...

I think I'll reevaluate this when you come up with that Safe at Home variant, but in the meantime I've talked myself around to dropping the whole Best(est) Friend concept. There are some lives I could lead where having a Bestest Friend could be really good and cool, but I'm not sure I want them more than the default to begin with, so I probably shouldn't spend thirteen or fourteen points on them. Thanks for listening.
She blanks out the whole Friend tree.
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That's very understandable! I'm glad I can help.
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Right, so...
Generosity through Quality Time are more of that Gloryseeker/Captive Audience vibe. I would rather just organically make friends who like hanging out with me.

Bakcchannel seems incredibly cool and useful.
You Can Teach Better is kind of necessary alongside Anything You Can Do but also just seems cool and nice? I'd love to be able to teach people things really well like that.

Not Like Other Girls is not for me. I can kind of see the appeal but I just don't feel it.

Love Interest/Triangle/Dodecahedron is kind of the Gloryseeker thing again, and also requires Mysterious Allure which is expensive and undesirable, and also I think I actively don't want everyone I fall for to like me back. I want only the people who genuinely see something desirable in me to like me back.

Time Enough For Love is just fantastic.

Safe at Home I've already mentioned my thoughts on.

I Can Help Them is clearly the best out of its little cluster. I mean, I Can Fix Them could be fine, I guess, but... I don't know, I don't like the perspective the description is written from? And Inspirational seems weirdly... vindictive. I want to Help people, not Fix them or make them regret hurting me. I want...

I guess I want my softie Dark Disney Princess good ending to be earned by actually being something my love interest(s) want and benefit from, and not just me secretly having been puppeteering them for my own amusement the whole time and finishing off by destroying them and turning them into better people against their will. You know?
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