"I guess. He seemed pissed but that could've been the mental illness I have that makes me think people are pissed at me."

"Oh, he wasn't, trust me. ...not more than his background levels of it. I'm pretty sure. If anything I think he was kind of relieved and glad of the excuse to go home. So I think he wasn't mad." Iiiin and oooout he's getting the hang of this he should not be thinking anything along those lines because that is hubris and will make him have another doubled-over coughing fit he should cease that at once. "He goes quiet when he's really mad. If he's still being loud and obnoxious he's fine. Not when he's quiet though, that's when he's mad. Did I just say that? I just said that."

"Huh," she declares.

"I hope if you can get us powers they're not all feminine," she says pensively. "...unless that's too close for comfort and you just wanna talk about like... whatever. Robotics team groupchat drama."

Snort. "I'm fine talking about powers but also what is the robotics team going to do without me." Another snort. "They're so fucked."

"Buh. My sister's incoming freshman next year, she's smart and shit, I'll tell her to have a coup."

"That'd be funny. Grown-ass seniors getting whipped by a freshman..." He shrugs exaggeratedly and takes another puff then blows it slowly. "They need it though. Getting whipped."

"Lola can beat them into shape. And they'll have an off year this year but sometimes you have an off year."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right."

They don't, actually, discuss powers anymore, despite Peter saying he's fine with it, because he's kind of refusing to have any new thoughts about them. He meant it when he said that he is not having any new epiphanies today.

When he gets home later Felicia is acting weird in a way their parents notice but Peter is a sufficiently good actor that they don't suspect a thing. It helps that the thing is a literal magic notebook that does not make any sense under their understanding of the universe, but anyway.

That night he is tempted to grab the notebook again and read over his choices and options, but actually his better judgment says that he should instead actually sleep on it, and he grudgingly listens to his better judgment. ...well, tries to, but of course he rolls in bed for half the night and when he wakes up he's feeling like underslept garbage. He leverages that into not going to school at all, making some use of the "I'm a straight As student and I'm feeling like crap and also I'm eighteen just let me sleep" excuse, which his mother isn't happy with but she does agree that he's eighteen and missing one day of school isn't gonna kill his academic career or whatever.

He texts his friends to say he's not coming to class today, sleeps another four hours, gets up, brushes his teeth, doesn't have breakfast because he never has breakfast, and then he sits down to talk to the notebook again.

hello again! i'm sorry for leaving you hanging so long, i've been processing stuff in my head

Don't worry about it! I'm glad you're taking the time to sort things out.

could you bring back the pages on which we had our conversations? i want to review everything we talked about and the power options i picked and all that

Of course!

cool thank you!

Now time for him to read all of that again.

(Little heart.)

The first thing that he thinks about as he's rereading stuff is that he was freaking out adorably. He doesn't usually think of himself as adorable but he was definitely 100% being very adorable, there.

That may be just a way he's sublimating the horror and putting distance between himself and his past self. Maybe. Just a little bit.

Anyway.

He should probably... think harder about this whole femininity thing. He was sort of rolling with it, in retrospect, and taking it in stride, and he does remember a vague freakout about his face he had later on but he should actually stop and think.

"Shapeshifting genderfluid bishounen". He had that specific thought, and remarked to himself that it sure implies some things about his gender, but what things, exactly, does it imply about his gender?

Well, for one, that he'd be okay not being a boy all the time. And that is so obviously, painfully true he's kind of reeling from it. How did he never notice that? Whenever he saw those pictures of genderfluid tumblr users being incredibly good at makeup he thought that was just him being extremely bisexual but in retrospect there was some wistfulness, there. He, too, kind of wished he could just... be a girl sometimes. Or be super androgynous, be the kind of person people look at and think to themselves "I'm not sure if I'm attracted to them or intimidated by them or want to be them". It'd be hot and extremely, intensely ego-syntonic.

And he... couldn't. Not really. He's vain, and he's an aesthete, and he wants to do his aesthetics right, and the aesthetic of "guy in drag" isn't, like, an aesthetic he doesn't like but he really doesn't think he could pull off "girl" and "androgyne" well enough to his satisfaction. He's not doing facial feminization surgery, for one, and he does have a very masculine face: a prominent Adam's apple, a sharp strong jaw, chin dimples, thick eyebrows, the whole shebang. He loses weight and builds muscle easily, he has broad shoulders and veiny forearms, he has a deep voice, he can rock the male aesthetic very easily. He can rock the straight male aesthetic very easily, actually, it does (to his guilt and shame) kind of make him feel a little bit proud that he passes as het so much that everyone was shocked when he came out. He likes not being a stereotype of a gay man even while he at the same time thinks it's fine to be that stereotype and he will fight (and has fought) anyone who says that he's a "normal person" or "not like other gays" or who thinks flamboyant men are uncool. Flamboyant men are very cool, thanks very much, and femme men, and butch women, and, and just let people have their lives and their bodies and their personalities and stop thinking less of them just because they don't fit your neat little boxes.

...but he likes that he's so good at his chosen aesthetic. It may not be the only aesthetic he'd fit, in principle, but it's his, and he worked hard at it, he works hard at it, and to succeed at any other aesthetics he'd need to work equally hard at them to be satisfied with them and in the meantime he'd feel horribly dysphoric.

That's it, really. That's the whole problem. He'd love to be Astolfo, he'd love to be Faith Lehane, he'd love to be Willam Belli, he'd love to be pre-transition Andreja Pejić (or post-transition Andreja Pejić but he's specifically thinking about the androgynous look), but he would not love to be halfway towards Faith Lehane or a discount Astolfo that everyone knows is just a man in makeup. He wouldn't love being someone who is trying to be Andreja Pejić. And when he thinks about how much he'd like to wear a skirt he thinks about a guy skirt, a skirt that is being worn by a man, a skirt that would make his mom wrinkle her nose in the same way she wrinkles her nose at piercings but not in a way that makes her think he's a fag.

Not that she'd use or even think that word, he's pretty sure. Just, that's what she'd be thinking, that he's a faggot, that he's that person. And he will fight anyone who says it's not okay to be that person, including his mom, but when he thinks about being that person the thing that stops him is mostly having to explain to her and knowing she'd disapprove.

...man he sure does have some shit to talk to his mom about, huh. He should probably open with this gender stuff before he brings up all the magic, which he still has no idea how he'll do.

Well, that's a problem for future Peter.

It feels... wrong to him, though, the thought that there's a finite, discrete list of aesthetics he's Allowed. Hell, even an infinite discrete list of aesthetics feels wrong. In the Glorious Transhumanist Future he wanted to be able to shapeshift into an octopus, why are there any human aesthetics that he doesn't want to inhabit?

Well, he doesn't want to shapeshift into a giraffe. ...maybe once. Or a hippo, the idea of having such fucked-up teeth makes him cringe.

And does it matter? No, really, does it? His magic powers are going to let him straightforwardly reach the Andreja Pejić aesthetic without having to go through the awkward, dysphoric intermediate stages. And once he's tried some new shapes, he expects his brain will have sufficiently acclimated to the idea that he'll be willing to try some other, less comfortable shapes. There's no reason he has to be okay with being a hippo now, that he has to be willing to inhabit every possible aesthetic immediately. Trying to force his brain to System 1 accept something uncomfortable or unpleasant just because he doesn't see any System 2 reason why he shouldn't does not, actually, work. Not without a ton of work and effort that might well be more effectively applied later. And yeah part of this is a sort of motivated reasoning due to him, in fact, feeling uncomfortable with this unpleasant idea, but that doesn't mean it's not true. No, really, he thinks it is true. And even if it's not, at least later he'll know that it's not, he'll have tried the shapeshifting gig and found out that it wasn't enough to make his brain sufficiently malleable in that direction.

So, okay. He'll be Astolfo and he'll be Faith and he'll be Andreja and he'll be Willam and if there's anyone else he wants to be he can be them whenever he feels like it. This is his story, he's the Mary Sue here, and in his story he will in fact live forever. He's not sure if his author will but surely a new author will pick his story up once the original one has stopped being written. He doesn't, really, on a gut level, believe he'll ever die, and now he has even more reason to be convinced of that.

And he'll... take his sister up on the makeup. A little bit. To get used to the idea of looking himself in the mirror and seeing someone who's beautiful, rather than handsome.

Peter doesn't think there are any other major epiphanies to be had about the personal powers section (ahahahahahah that is such a doomed thought to think) but the Power of Friendship absolutely has some shit he'll need to work through. He's definitely not going to be entirely done with this today. But that's fine, he has time, and it would be a shit story if he got hit by truck-kun before he finalized his thoughts.

Hear that, author? Shit story. He's even mostly picked most of his powers already, you're not getting a ton of mileage out of this if you don't let him finish.

Anyway, Power of Friendship it is, and right off the bat he has something he wants to ask the notebook about.

okay, I got to the part where we talked about the Power of Friendship and how I prefer for things to have less rather than more mind control and you had said you wanted me to tell you which powers I wanted to change to be like that

and I didn't mention Mysterious Allure but that's one that I'd like to have that change applied to, if possible?

And he'll resume rereading their conversation and the other options with half an eye while he waits for the notebook to reply.

Of course! ♡

thank you! does anything change about its description and/or cost? it doesn't explicitly mention mind control, but, you know

The description and cost stay the same, but it won't work quite as consistently.