She nods. Then feels silly because the notebook probably can't see her.

Makes sense. We'll keep going then. That's getting a placeholder A with an asterisk for now so we know to come back to this idea.

She marks it down and on they go.

Generosity through Agree to Agree get an eloquently disgusted face and an F.

Nope. Nope nope nope. I only want my friends to agree with me if I'm actually right, and to convince me if they're the ones actually right. And the rest is just too much non-consensual alteration. Or world-selection-narrowing. Or something.

Backchannel, on the other hand, gets an A. 

This one's much better. Just a straight-forward communication advantage.

And then You Can Teach Better gets an S.

Oh wow. I already kind of enjoy teaching, and this really gives me some beastly advantages at it. Yes please, I'd love to upskill all my friends and loved ones in anything they're interested in.

She waffles for a while over Not Like Other Girls, but eventually gives it a B.

This is kind of situational, but as a trans girl, I can't bring myself to knock it down to a C, because prejudice sucks so hard.

Pacifist gets a little "hehe, cute" written next to it, and a C. The Love Interest chain gets a round of Fs on the basis of forcing people, and then she stops in her tracks at Time Enough For Love.

Oh fuck. I...

A tear rolls down her cheek and lands on the paper.

I need this perk. Not having this perk has been the single thing that hurts me most my whole life, and I only see it getting worse as time goes on. This perk is the answer to the oldest, deepest wound in my heart. Thank you.

That gets an S.

Oh, I'm so glad! The best part of this job is giving people the powers they really, really needed. ♡

Sable sighs tenderly.

Well, direct hit, then. 

...May I hug you?

You may! ♡ I'm sorry if my corners are poky, I'm told it's not very huggable of them.

She closes the notebook carefully, picks it up, and hugs very snugly, sighing gratefully and stroking the back cover a few times. After a minute, she sets the notebook back down and opens it back up.

Thank you. ♡ Not remotely poked at all.

Oh good. ♡

And onward they go. Safe At Home and I Can Fix Them get Ds, while their modified versions get Bs.

Not a fan of how Safe At Home limits options, and not a fan of how much agency is taken away by I Can Fix them. The alternates are good though.

Inspirational gets a C.

True Love's Kiss and Eternal Love get Ss, and Rescuer gets an A.

I'm vetoing putting Rescuer above an A just because Sable overburdens herself too easily.

Planned Parenthood gets a B, while Providential Parenthood gets an S.

If we're actually ready for it, we'd maybe consider kids, but the big thing we like better here is the lack of... call it "forced belief." We mostly just categorically don't want kids, but fullness of time and all that shit.

Laugh Together gets a B, while its alternates get Ds. Bop It gets a D, while The Princess And The Dragon gets a B. Opening Up and Reaching Out get Bs, while their alternates get Fs.

And then they stop at Fated Lovers.

Feel complicated about this. Probably meeting good people is very good for us, but also we just tend to meet lots of great people, and Sable can love damned near anyone. Not sure what to do here.

There's also an option later on that reduces unwanted mental interference in general. You could take Planned Parenthood with that, when you get there, if the openness to surprises isn't what draws you to Providential.

If you already meet plenty of potential partners and don't think you need to meet more, I think you can skip Fated Lovers. It's very helpful for people who have a hard time picturing themselves meeting someone who could love them, but it doesn't sound like that's you.

Then Fated Lovers gets a C, as does Fated Friends. The Sorry chain and the Style pair all get Fs, and then the girls reach Like A Mirror. 

Huh. The only part of this that's useful to us specifically is the part about finding alts. We tend to cooperate with ourselves. Also, would this find individual instances or only system instances?

Self-Reflection gets another raised eyebrow.

And this... This is a little like the kind of connection we want to linger if we get individual bodies. We'd prefer something more mental, with the option to just throw balls of thought and info at each other, and maybe support for a persistent and more detailed mindspace, rather than the more physicalist connection depicted in this perk.

And then Chaser Six When.

Oh. Forking and merging. Yeah, this could be stretched to do individual embodiment, I see it. We don't need fully-general forking and merging, though, just one body each — well two if Maya is being a ship and a girl at the same time, if you find a good wording for that. But yeah. I see why you wanted us to see this.

I think the externalization power I come up with for you all might end up looking something like a very specific and limited form of Chaser Six When that only lets you externalize individual people from yourself while staying connected, and perhaps merge with each other and externalize again if that seems like a thing you want. It should also let you merge and split the same way with any multi-body situations you create by other means, but not let you create arbitrary new bodies for yourselves because that would cost more points.

As for Maya, I think I can get Bestest Friend with Transformer to accept an externalized person as the Friend, especially if your mindset is already Friend-like (meaning that you're very friendly with and loyal to the rest of you)... but I might need an extra power to allow a Friend to take a humanlike form, especially if it's simultaneous with another body.

Does that all make sense?

That makes sense and sounds fuckin' perfect. And yeah, deeply "friendly and loyal" is very nearly the most accurate description of Maya. Only more-accurate one would be "steadfastly devoted lover, helper, and ally". Loyalty to the rest of us is what she's about.

And yeah, merging bodies back in sometimes would be nice, because sometimes we want to minimize the number of us who have to be out in the world dealing with something frustrating and have the rest of us cuddle up in mindspace or something.

Okay, I'll work on that while you go through the rest of the list, then! ♡

Severance goes down as a C for how situational it is — not like they're going to tell anyone in their destination world her or Sable's deadnames, so it's not very necessary. Popular and Famous get Fs. Undiplomatic Immunity and Vending Machine get Cs, and the Friends In perks get Bs.

And finally it's on to drawbacks.

Decorative and Beauty Is A Curse get Cs. Even Worse gets a B, because rivals feel somehow less annoying than the constant talking about it. Plain Jane gets a D, while Style of Sisyphus gets a B. There's Another One gets a C.

What d'you think are the odds another vessel turns out to be a threat rather than a potential ally?

Incomplete and Nullified get S-ranked immediately. The girls didn't want to meddle with people's minds anyway. Grimm's Fairy Tales gets an A. Funhouse gets an A with a note.

A variant on this that applies to the plurality perks you're workshopping might be nice, given that we don't need any backing from the Spirit on our loyalty to each other.

The Responsibility chain gets marked down with As, and she pauses.

These very much enable Sable to do the kind of overburdening herself she's vulnerable to, but since she does it out of a sort of deeply personal love for everyone she interacts with, she might be able to leverage the perks to make it not overburden her. Not sure. Thoughts welcome.

It's hard to be sure!

I'm not sure exactly how the question of loyalty will fit into the externalization powers yet, but I'll keep that in mind.

That makes sense. Sable, can you say more about how you feel about these drawbacks and how they would fit into your life?

I think I've got that Personal Space variant worked out, but I'm not sure I'm satisfied with it... in particular, it might prevent any hugs or other contact that you have strongly mixed feelings about. If you're fine with that then I think it's a good power, but if you're not, I should think about it some more.

Name: Personal Bubble - Cost: 3 ☐
(Replaces Personal Space)
No one can touch you if you don't want them to. You can slip through crowds and squeeze past strangers without ever coming into contact, and intimate contact only happens if you're okay with it. When you get into a physical fight, this effect is suspended for other combatants, but still applies to bystanders.

I... If I know a person, I care about them. If I care about them, I want to help them. Everyone deserves better than this world. Everyone deserves more, deserves safety and peace and comfort and affection. And if I have the power to help people, I want to do so. Helping people makes the world feel... less wrong to live in, makes it easier to metaphorically breathe, like something in me unclenches a bit at seeing people's lives become less fucked.

That personal space perk looks great, by the way. A question, though: where's the balance on "don't want to"? Like if I know it's going to suck but I endorse trying to wear down my aversion with a particular person, would it interfere?

Hmmm... a question that comes to mind, then, is: is it satisfying for you to personally be the one to help someone else? Or would you rather, if you could, just live in a world where someone else has solved all the problems already? Does your best life look more like helping people and making their lives better, or more like finding yourself in a world where things are already okay?

Even the Spirit's power can't solve every problem everywhere for everyone in an instant, so there will always be people somewhere in the greater multiverse who need help. But there are plenty of places where the amount of help people need isn't very much, and if ending up in one of those would let you relax and feel okay, it might be better to look for that from Isekai Roulette than to take drawbacks that push you into unhealthy patterns. On the other hand, if you think that helping others is part of your best life, you could take the drawbacks and we could try to find ways to soften them and support you so that the result is something that makes your life better and not worse.

That's what I was trying to say—the way the power came together, its definition of 'okay with' is pretty strict. It might not let you touch people in ways that are really uncomfortable and unpleasant for you, even if you're making an endorsed choice to try anyway. Do you want me to try again?

Yeah, I'd appreciate another try at it. The only way I can wear the aversion down in any kind of reasonable timeframe is by gritting my teeth and pushing through it.

I'd still know, though. I need to be helping people directly, even if just a few.

I could go in a different direction and try to get you a power that's focused on preventing unwanted incidental contact and very permissive about deliberate touch?

Do you want to try taking the drawbacks, then, and see what we can do to make them as healthy for you as possible?

I think so, yeah.

Yes please.

Okay. I'll keep thinking about that power, then, and in the meantime you can finish reading through the rest of the list.

Thanks

And down they go. Mood Ring gets a B.

I'm not a fan of the damage this would do to my poker face. It's kind of aesthetic, though, especially for Sable.

Very Distinctive gets an S. This is basically free points for them. Flashy gets a D, though. and Moodier Ring gets a C.

Secret Identity gets a tentative C and a question.

Given we're not currently planning to come back here, we're not sure how we feel about this perk. It would prevent us from being able to do any uplift back here if we ever came back. Well. Hm. Maybe actually it would just handicap our uplift attempts? Would we still be able to use things we acquired after arriving in our destination world back here?

Selective Memory gets an A, because she knows they can find options that do everything they need to whether or not they know of them. The Veil gets a C.

Dramatic Damsel gets a B, and then Neo briefly jumps in to mark Love Is A Battlefield down as S. Seen With The Heart gets an A.

Green With Envy, You'll Ruin Them, and Jilted Lovers all get Fs.

The Crazy Train gets a C, and That's How It Goes gets a D.

Live The Role gets a C, Marionette gets a D, They'll Know gets a B, and Realism gets an F.

Okay, that's all of them.

Secret Identity conceals the effects of your powers, which includes anything you gain using Dragon Fairy Elf Witch and similar; but it doesn't stop you from going to a world where anyone can learn magic, learning magic there the way anyone could, and bringing that magic back to your world of origin.

I think I have that second variant worked out!

Name: Personal Slipstream - Cost: 3 ☐
(Replaces Personal Space)
Incidental physical contact doesn't happen to you; you can touch and be touched only by your deliberate choice. Things such as getting in a fight or giving someone a hug can count as making that choice, even if you would prefer that the person you punch or hug not be able to touch you back.