"Well, but you can at least resolve the magical confusion, then, right, which previously weren't causing you to go all 'ugh' so now oughtn't either."

"… Meaning I should just try to ignore the fact that I have added magical stuff, and just try to act as I would without it? I've been trying to do that."

"Yeah, which seems to be fine until something reminds you you're supposed to be in magic vampire love with me and then you make all these faces and get upset except then when you squint at it it goes away which was what I was trying to ascertain you could do. You could also maybe make resolutions, like right now you don't want to kiss me so you won't even if the magic vampire love tells you you should, and right now you don't want to just do whatever I want you to so next time I ask you something you won't automatically do it, or something. Unless it's even more insidious than that, which sounds exhausting but apparently you also have a superbrain now."

"Right, but when I look at you and go 'hm, you know, could kiss him' and then go 'wait no, magical thing should stop' and then go 'but was it magical or was it just my thoughts', that is when it's annoying and difficult and I don't know whether squinting at my own thoughts is making them disappear too or if it's only the magical ones or if the solid ones are literally all my thoughts that don't conflict with the magic or what and it's really seriously annoying because I don't think I can trust my brain to let me act as I would normally be inclined to so– okay, sure, I'll just resolve now not to do that, see how that goes."

"I mean, does the desire to kiss me go away when you look at it closely, as opposed to argue with it? And did it exist before you turned into a vampire? Is there, like, a desire to kiss Matt now, he's very kissable—by the way are you in magic love with him?"

"I don't think I'm in magic love with him, there's no sudden new desire to kiss him. For you, there was a bit of desire before I turned but I didn't actually overall want to, hence me not actually going for you the times you suggested it, and no, it doesn't go away if I try to argue with it, it just sort of lingers there vaguely instead of being very obviously solid or very obviously squintable, because those aren't actually strong, distinct categories, they're vaguely categories that the thoughts sort of fit into."

Matt sighs.

"Well, but when it doesn't go away is it any stronger than it was before you turned?"

"Don't think so," he says. "But I'm not sure, because my emotions are all screwy anyway."

"So it sounds like at least provisionally you can just squint at everything and then take it at face value."

"Or if I can't it doesn't matter anyway because this thing is making other thoughts super squintable, so yeah, seems like I might as well act that way."

"Yeah, I mean, if there are thoughts you can't actually squint away you might as well consider them to be part of whoever you are now."

"Yep," he says, seeming thrilled about this. "Hopefully they're not too shit."

"Well if they are you could change them the normal way."

"Probably, unless I have new indelible personality traits or something disgusting like that, but it's still annoying."

"Changing your mind the normal way is?"

"If it's something I feel strongly about or agree with until I notice that I really shouldn't be agreeing with or feeling strongly about it, yeah?"

"I don't really find that kind of thing annoying, but alright, I guess."

"… Do you have any idea if you need to talk to me for the magical love thing to swap over, if that's what it does?"

"I don't know?" says Theo. "– Actually, yeah, Sadde, did you feel weird magical love for me when you first saw me today or is this for some reason literally just: Matt possibly gets it for me immediately, I get it for you after like thirty minutes?"

"...you know, now that you mention it, I did find you particularly and exceptionally yummy when we met, but I chalked it up to a late reaction to grief or something. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it at the time, though, and I don't... know... if I was having the same thing?"

"… So it might be that people have weird vampire love for me until something that causes it to flip, currently seeming to be 'about thirty minutes' from one data point. Oh, won't this be wonderful if we can't work out what flips it, I get to be magically attached to however many people to try to work out what the crossover is, or alternatively hope that we stumble across some way to make it just not happen when I interact with people, ugh."

"Have we determined Matt is in magical vampire love with you, then?"

"Nope," he says. "Got any foolproof checks available or are we just gonna have to see, because – like, I feel slightly different about him, but I thought he was dead, so."

"That's pretty much what I thought about it, but, uh, I guess the obvious check is having Theo suggest something weird that you'd normally refuse or at least take a bit to consider but not so weird as to be obvious and then see if you do it?"