Okay, now that version is fuckin' perfect. And thanks for the clarification.

She marks Personal Slipstream down as an A.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking...

Some of you seem to want powers or drawbacks that others don't, like Mood Ring or Personal Slipstream. I don't think each of you could get entirely separate builds... but it's possible I could come up with something that lets you each reserve part of the build for yourself. I'm not sure, though, I get the sense that it's somewhat uncharted territory. Would you be interested in something like that, though, if you could?

!!!!!

They all reply on one line, each taking a word:

Holy fucking void yes please!!

Okay! I'll do my best to get that figured out, then. ♡

Thank you. ♡

Any thoughts on what to do to moderate the impact of the Responsibility drawbacks, give my girls less work reminding me to be a person around the edges of them?

This is making it sound like they're going to need a lot of moderating!

>///< I'm being hyperbolic because I'm embarrassed, trying to find shelter in bad jokes.

That makes sense. ♡

(Also, what a cute face drawing! That's a face, right?)

It is! A very blushy one!

Well, I think it's sweet. ♡

Okay. Can you tell me about how you would feel about those drawbacks, and how you would live with them, and what kinds of changes might make them better and more comfortable and easier to handle? It might be helpful to get multiple perspectives, if any of the rest of you want to chime in.

Okay. ♡

Well. Great Responsibility feels in part a bit like... relief? Like with it I fundamentally can't miss someone who needs my help, reduces the problem just to figuring out how to get there and what to do about the situation. There's no more worry of "wait what if someone wants my help and I don't know" because they can just call out to me. And Helpline just takes that a step further by making sure I don't have to have explicitly told them I can do this. Not sure if Responsibility requires it to be out loud or not, it would be better if not.

Basically you fundamentally don't know how to consider someone's problems not your responsibility, so you see these perks as a strict upgrade of just making you more able to find the problems and help. And what about requests you don't have a way to reach in time? Problems that happen too quickly for you to travel there in time? You'll be beating yourself up about those.

If I gain a vehicle form, that will help with travel speeds, but nonetheless, we need some manner of triage built in. We need a way of ensuring you will not overwork yourself with the responsibility.

>///< Yeah, you have a point, girls.

As far as Mantle... the biggest advantage of it is that it will help discourage people from making asinine requests for awful bigoted or hurtful things. Not thrilled with being so very set apart, unless there's a good way to help romantic interests cut through that sense of distance.

Can you say more about what you mean by set apart?

The thing that really gives me the most joy in my life is spending time with people who're enjoying things, or excited, or happy, or making satisfying progress, or in some other way thriving. Being close to people. Hailey likes to call me "ten pounds of love in a five pound bag", because I love people so much. 

When I'm not calling you a daft inkblot, at least.

>///< Hush. But the concern I have about Mantle is that, while I don't mind being alien or weird or eldritch or unnerving in principle... I don't want people to feel like they can't try to get close to me, because being close to people is what gets me out of bed in the morning.

I see what you mean!

I do think that what your Divine Mantle would say about you is all true things, though, and I'm sure there are people out there in the multiverse who would want to be close to you even though those things are true, or even because those things are true. It just might be harder to find them, when the first thing people see about you is something that a lot of them will find imposing.

Yeah, I think you're right. And that's why, on reflection, I think I do want that perk. It's just saying true things, and paying me points to let it say them. 

Really the tricky bit is figuring out how to do the triage.

Yes, that's a tricky one...

In the meantime, I have the start of something for Maya. I think I can build on it to get an externalization power for the rest of you, but I'm not sure. It turned out that keeping the Best Friend loyalty in place made the power cheaper, so I did that - would the rest of you be okay with having that kind of mutual bond between all of you, in the final externalization power?

Name: A Friend Like You - Cost: 1 ☐
(Requires Bestest Friend and Transformer)
Your Friend can shapeshift at will into a human or humanoid form, instead of or in addition to an inanimate one. This new form preserves one signature feature, like iridescent black hair, a shining unicorn horn, or slit-pupiled golden eyes, from whichever other form your Friend considers their truest.

Name: Friend From Within - Cost: 4 ☐
(Requires A Friend Like You)
Your Friend's personality is either a mirror of your own, or an externalization of someone who lives in your head. You are their Friend as much as they are yours, and your mutual love and loyalty are unbreakable. The effects of powers in the Best Friend tree apply to you accordingly, and the effects of your other powers and drawbacks apply to your Friend. The two of you metaphysically count as both a single person and two separate people, with results depending on which combination of interpretations is most convenient.

Oh my. Oh that is lovely. The signature feature part could even let me express the engine of my vehicle form as coalfire hair.

I do not think we have any objection to the loyalty. We are already deeply loyal, so it would not be much of a change to our experience.

Yeah, none of us mind that, as long as it doesn't stop us from snarking at each other and teasing each other. We wouldn't want to lose that.

The friendship created by Best Friend is real friendship, and real friendship doesn't stop people from teasing each other. ♡

Mmkay, then it'll hardly do shit to us. That's great. Thanks for that.

She updates Ascended Friend down to C, Best and Bestest Friend both to A, and A Friend Like You and Friend From Within to S.