He goes ahead and takes it. He doesn't want Incomplete or, when he turns the page, Nullified.

Does Grimm's Fairy Tales do anything that Dramatic Damsel doesn't?

96/82

I think that bad things from Grimm's Fairy Tales will happen more often than with Dramatic Damsel, and there's less of a requirement for them to happen when it would make for a really good story. For some reason the phrase "gritty reimagining of a Disney-style fairy tale" comes to mind even though I don't really know what that means.

Elan doesn't really know what that means either, except that it probably has something to do with Disney Princess. He decides that he doesn't really want to carve out an exception for himself in Cotton Candy. He also doesn't want The Princess and the Pea; he doesn't have Snowglobe anyway so he doesn't worry about it.

Next page. He still would rather be surprised by any mirror Elans, Funhouse or not, if they do show up. Great Responsibility and Helpline seem like a lot. He feels guilty for skipping over them, but he has the feeling that if he takes them he'll be sad and stressed out all the time, like if he took The Rescuer.

Divine Mantle is like those two but more. Fortunately, that seems to be the end of that section and he can take Mood Ring and Moodier Ring! Those are great; they're like the complete opposite of Decorative. Oh, he needs to take Like Roses for this one. He flips back to do that.

Do you think that the Mood Ring powers can work with my Soundtrack? I mean drawbacks.

97/86

Hmm, I don't know what that would look like! But I'm glad that you like those drawbacks so much they feel like powers to you. ♡

Well like, maybe if I try something and it doesn't work there could be a trombone sound effect. Or if I slip on a banana peel it could do that really exaggerated "fweep!" Or if I see a really pretty girl it could do the "awooga!" thing. You know, stuff like that.

97/86

Oh! How about…

Sound Effects ☐
Grants: 2
(requires Soundtrack, Mood Ring, and Slapstick Comedy)
Feelings and reactions that are advertised by Mood Ring or moments of indignity brought on by Slapstick Comedy will be accompanied by cartoony sound effects that can be heard by those around you.

Yay, this is great!

Elan checks off Sound Effects and then jumps forward to grab Slapstick Comedy too. Which… hmm.

Taking more of the requirements makes a power or drawback work better, right?

97/90

Yes! All the powers and drawbacks synergize with each other, especially related powers like the appearance powers, battle powers, and sex powers or, as you said, powers and drawbacks that are requirements for the same power or drawback.

I already have two powers that Slapstick Comedy would want, so now I'm thinking about Mysterious Allure. At first I didn't wanna take it because I was worried that it would keep me from meeting people who are even more interesting than me. Plus, if I can't be the most interesting person around by having a physically impossible hairdo or wearing a skimpy swimsuit in the middle of a snowy battlefield, I'm probably not using my fun powers enough! But I think that Makes the Dream Work cancels out the thing I didn't like about Mysterious Allure, and then if I took it Slapstick Comedy would be even funnier.

97/90

That reasoning makes sense to me!

Yay! Next page.

Very Distinctive tempts him but he decides against it because he doesn't think he wants to decide right now that he can never disguise himself. Plus, A Thousand Faces already is kind of like this by default. Flashy is funny but needs Very Distinctive.

Does Mark of the Witch make me look less human? Even before I discover heritage?

102/90

Yes, to both. It'll work through your appearance powers if you haven't used Dragon Fairy Elf Witch yet. If you think that not looking fully human will feel wrong or not like yourself, Mark of the Witch would probably be hard to live with.

It's not that. I'm just worried because I wanna come home sometimes, between adventures, and catch up with my mom. And I guess I'm worried that if I look too weird it'll freak her out.

102/90

I think it makes sense to worry about that! That's a real challenge that people who take Mark of the Witch face sometimes. But I do think that, especially since you have Eternal Love, even if your mom's alarmed at first it won't make her stop loving you.

☺

Next page. Oh, he guesses that Secret Identity would also get around Mark of the Witch but he likes "his mom accepts his weird powers and nonhuman features" better than "he never has nonhuman features or weird powers around his mom" and he also just doesn't want all the fun powers to turn off like that. A Single Perfect Flaw seems… heavy. He skips it for now.

Oh.

Selective Memory.

He hadn't even realized that was the kind of thing that drawbacks could do.

Do I have to pick what powers I forget by myself? If I don't do that before I finalize will they be randomly picked or will I just not get the drawback?

102/94

No, the powers will be picked for you. They won't be random, they'd be the ones that you'd probably pick if you sat down and thought about it or the ones that would most help you live your best life. Probably they would try to be both of those things, but if they couldn't they'd be the thing that you preferred.

He can do that, then! He'd kind of like a drawback that goes even farther, but he's not sure how to ask. He flips the page. The name of The Veil looks promising, but the actual drawback is not something that he wants. He already has Dramatic Damsel.

He thinks pretty hard about Love is a Battlefield. He looks at all the powers he has that could be described as "defensive." He thinks that he doesn't want Love is a Battlefield.

The next two drawbacks need Love is a Battlefield. The Wrong Crowd is tempting, but he thinks that it might cause him to have Dramatic Damsel adventures more frequently than he wants.

There's more Dramatic Damsel variants on the next page anyway! He doesn't particularly want Hot Commodity or Get Rich Quick but he does like Delicious and Nutritious.

He can't take Golden Goose or Keeps on Giving and doesn't really want them. Wardrobe Malfunction seems good!

If I have a Wardrobe Malfunction then does whatever I was wearing when it happened get ruined forever?

102/97

"Ruined forever" seems unlikely but I can't rule out the possibility that clothes that get damaged in a Wardrobe Malfunction will reflect the damage in some symbolic way.

That makes it even better!

He doesn't really like Mudslinging. He's already got Slapstick Comedy and likes that a lot better than Down to Earth.

Green With Envy, You Ruin Them, and Jilted Lovers are all sad and scary.

His eyes light up when he flips the page. The Crazy Train, That's How it Goes, Live the Role… those are all amazing. Is this the thing that he wanted out of Selective Memory?

Hmm. It's almost there, but he's got an important question to ask about The Crazy Train.

When The Crazy Train says that the narrative might not necessarily have my best interests in mind, is that in the Dramatic Damsel way or the It Gets Better way?

102/115

The Dramatic Damsel way! I think that It Gets Better is the strongest power there is.

That's what he thought! But it never hurts to check.

There's something that I want a drawback for. It's kind of hard to explain, and a lot of people think it's super confusing and doesn't make sense, but I think that you and the Spirit will be able to understand it perfectly.

He takes a breath and tries to think of how to put the concept into words.

So there's a class I took at Bard Camp called The More You Don't Know. The first question the teacher asked us was…

Adventuring party A and adventuring party B are both buying equipment for a quest. Adventuring party A gets together and does a whole bunch of quest research and makes a list of what equipment they're going to want on the quest, and how much it costs, and how much money they have. They figure out every thing they could possibly want and how much of it they should get and who should be carrying what. Adventuring party B doesn't do any of that, everyone just picks out whatever they want and nobody tells each other anything specific about what they got. Which party is more prepared for the quest?

Everyone guessed A but the answer was B. Because there are always going to be surprises. But more than that, if you don't say what you have or what your plan is or whatever, then it's more likely that later on it will turn out that you'll have exactly what you need. Because you didn't say that you didn't have it.

I want that. I want the narrative or the Spirit or whatever to be able to choose powers for me that I never imagined I might want. I want it to be able to take away a power if it turns out that having it makes my life or the story that I'm telling worse. I don't just want Selective Memory, because that's only part of it. It's like the gun on the table thing or the Undressing Room thing. I want the question of what powers I have to not have a specific well-defined answer.

102/115

Are you sure?

Yeah. If the Spirit can give that to me, I want it.

102/115

The next words still appear more slowly than the notebook's normal writing speed.

Informed Consent ☐
Grants: 16
(requires Live The Role)
Your list of powers and drawbacks is open to adjustment based on narrative considerations and your long-term preferences. Your memory of this drawback may be hidden from you in order to increase the narrative impact of adjustments, or for other reasons.