"In Mary Sue fics, when a love triangle happens, at least a competitive one, the love interest just abandons their previous partner or their job or whatever to be with the Mary Sue. The 'drama' that the power talks about is the kind of drama where people abandon things that are important to them to be with me. I do not want that."

"I'll bet you'll find a lot more people who are open to a poorly-defined poly thing with a world-hopping supertwink than would be under normal circumstances, anyway."

"I do have Time Enough For Love which gives me, well, time to spend with people like that, so it probably doesn't even need to be that poorly-defined."

Marcus reads on to find that power. "Goddamn, dude, you're never going to get any sleep."

"It's explicitly extra time on top of the regular time! - separately you should ask the friendbook if you can get the Mary Sue thing of oh I only need four hours of sleep, it's genetic, teehee. It's within actual human variance, it can't be that expensive."

"Oh hell yes, I want that. Although maybe I can get that for free with Dragon Elf Fairy Witch? I'm sure there's some magical heritage that needs a lot less sleep, or none. Toril elves only need a four-hour trance, and even though half-elves need regular sleep it would be very Mary Sueish to be a half-elf that somehow inherited the elf trance."

"Sense," Vivian says. "Or a golem, or something - oooooh scratch that, vampire. Find a really cool kind of vampire to appropriate. I'm assigning this as homework."

"...Twilight vampire. I'm gonna be a dh—no, Twilight vampire dhampyrs have forced sleep schedules. ...hmm. Mary Sue dhampyr who inherits the no-sleep and doesn't inherit the constant thirst."

"Are you going to sparkle. Are you going to be a shiny femboy, one in four thousand, alternate color palate, show it off to your friends at recess, this got away from me bad."

He grins. "Gotta catch 'em all. Be caught by 'em all. One of those."

"A key that opens every lock, a lock that opens to any key..." Vivian pauses. "I was trying to evoke shitty misogynistic cultural memes but it came out sounding weirdly arcane and kind of badass. Nice."

"I mean I am getting magic that also lets me be the hoe of my dreams..."

"'For some reason this applies especially well to boys kissing each other.' This was made with a really specific target audience in mind, hmm?"

"Hmm?" Lean. "Oh, Before Your Eyes. Yeah, fujoshi galore."

"How do you want me to not make fun of the way you speak when the way you speak is that."

He rolls his eyes and holds out his hand. "Give me the notebook, I want to ask her about Dragon Fairy Elf Witch and sleeping."

"Yeah fine." Notebook.

hello i have returned with questions

first question is, can you tell me more about Dragon Fairy Elf Witch? in particular I was thinking about what the circumstances for it to be activated were, like could I just declare that I am now a specific type of dhampyr with specific traits that don't normally occur in that type of dhampyr even if i'm not currently in a world that contains that kind? and from the other side, would that turn my world into a world that contains that kind of dhampyr?

In order to activate Dragon Fairy Elf Witch you have to have actually encountered an example of the specific type of being you want to incorporate. Just passing them on the street or seeing them from across a room or having a brief clash with them in battle is enough, as long as they're distinctive enough for you to notice that they're an example of a type of heritage that you want, so that you have the example in mind when you use the power. I don't think any combination of powers could retroactively give your world magic it didn't previously have.

I'm also not sure what you mean about specific traits that don't normally occur? Dragon Fairy Elf Witch can only give you aspects of a being's heritage that the source example or their ancestors actually have or had, but it can definitely hybridize different heritages to produce results that neither one could have offered alone, and it doesn't have to do that in ways that make sense or could happen naturally; what matters is mostly whether it feels right to you to be that way.

the thing I had in mind was, I'm not sure if you know about the Twilight book series? it has vampires who sparkle in the sun, don't need sleep, have a whole host of powers et cetera, and they can have children with humans - well, male vampires can impregnate human females - and then their half-vampire children don't sparkle in the sun as much and aren't constantly in horrible throat pain due to thirst and can eat normal food but on the other hand they have supernaturally enforced sleep schedules

and what i would like is to be a version of that kind of dhampyr that doesn't sparkle, isn't constantly thirsty, isn't always in pain, but does have the superpowers and the supernatural beauty and so on, and conversely doesn't need to sleep ever, like their parent

and now that i think about it i'm also wondering about whether, like, this would cause one of my parents to be a vampire or something? i suppose that depends on the relevant ise mechanics of the isekai method...

Dragon Fairy Elf Witch just changes your heritage as it affects your own mind and body and so on, not as it affects other people or as it affects the past. There are some really unusual situations where it's more complicated than that, but they usually involve other powers and someone deliberately trying to become a specific person's long-lost daughter or something like that.

I've heard about Twilight before! I think if you met a vampire from those books, or maybe even if you just met a half-vampire, you could use Dragon Fairy Elf Witch to be like you describe - after all, having a supernaturally enforced sleep schedule sure sounds like a drawback to me, and so does being constantly in horrible pain!

Going to another world just transports you there, and doesn't change anything about your history or the history of the world to give you a backstory there, unless the world is one that does that automatically for new arrivals.

oh so it's not the kind of isekai where i wake up in the body of an existing person, or i'm born to parents there, or anything like that? alright, that does make sense and change things

Yes, exactly. You just appear in the target world in some narratively appropriate place, exactly as you are when you finish getting your powers, with no other changes.

oh, do I bring things with me? should i pack? although I guess if i go for isekai roulette I won't know what to pack exactly

You can bring anything you're wearing or carrying, though of course with Dressing Room you can also change what you're wearing or carrying very easily. Packing things can definitely be useful but I think mostly only if you're the sort of person who'd pack things, if that makes sense.