Name: I Can Help Them - Cost: 5 ☐
(Replaces I Can Fix Them)
Regardless of how lost to darkness someone is, your love can save them, if they're willing to accept it.
This power will not directly alter someone's mind except to allow them to believe a true thing they couldn't have believed otherwise, or to change something that their pre-alteration and post-alteration selves would hypothetically be able to agree was good if they talked it over honestly with full access to each other's perspectives. In cases where the outcome of the hypothetical is uncertain, it will default to not making the change.

I think this one is more focused on the less central, less obvious cases - people who might be doing bad things because they have a hard time realizing that there are better options, or might not even be doing bad things and just be really unhappy in a way that's hard to solve from the inside.

Hmm.

She taps her pen against her knee.

That does make sense. I'm trying to imagine what using this power would be like ...

The description says that it makes them 'good, kind, and upstanding', but that's not really the same thing as being happy.

 

What would happen if I used this power on someone who had never done anything really bad, but did occasionally lash out at other people around them when they were in a bad mood, for example? Would it make them have fewer bad moods, or just get better at not lashing out at people when they were in a bad mood?

The description of I Can Fix Them is kind of an oversimplification. Both of those powers are about... helping people grow and change and learn and be both kinder and happier. I think the person in the situation you're talking about would probably get better at not lashing out, and better at getting out of bad moods when they have them, and better at avoiding bad moods in the first place.

That's a lot more tempting than the description makes it sound.

 

... I'm not sure. On the one hand, being able to help people no matter how far lost in their own heads they are sounds wonderful. On the other hand, this power still doesn't ... feel like the way I'm used to helping people?

That's not a good way of putting it, but I'm not sure how to put it better. I'll make a note and we can come back to it.

 

GGG and Before Your Eyes both sound like more of the more-validating-to-do-yourself powers. I definitely don't object to powers that improve sex, but part of the fun of introducing a partner to new things is in figuring out which new things will appeal to them and being delighted by how that lets you know them better.

She debates whether to use finding out that the notebook enjoys Scrabble as an example, and then realizes that that sounds like she's coming on to it and discards the idea.

That makes sense! I think you're right that those two powers aren't for you.

Great! It's always nice to have someone double check things as important as this.

 

Fated Lovers could be interesting -- I like the idea of being introduced to lots of potential romantic prospects -- but I expect to meet lots of interesting people anyways.

... actually, how does Time Enough For Love handle people that you might want to get to know, but that you aren't close friends with yet? I'm imagining a bottleneck situation where I can use it to keep up with scads of people, but then all the time to meet new people has to come out of my real-time budget. But if it applies to spending time with people who I want to try to become friends with, that's not really a concern.

Yes, Time Enough For Love applies to both keeping up with existing relationships, and deepening new ones! The time you take to find new people in the first place still has to come out of your real-time budget like you said, but once you've met someone and are trying to get to know them better, Time Enough For Love will apply.

She grins, and then doodles a smiley face in the margin.

In that case, I'm not too worried about finding love interests. I bet I can meet people pretty quickly.

... although, then the number of people I can meaningfully remember becomes a pretty big bottleneck. Do you have any powers that expand your ability to remember/befriend distinct people?

Time Enough For Love should help a lot with keeping up with that sort of thing, though I think it might start getting weird once there are really big numbers involved...

...I have an idea but I'm not sure if it's the right thing for you, and I'm not sure it quite solves your problem. It should help a lot, though.

What do you think of the idea of being able to fork in a less discrete, more freeform way, so that instead of individual specific instances of you, you have a sort of fluid cloud of you-ness, and you can remember as many things as all of you together can remember, and befriend as many people as all of you together can befriend? You should still be able to fork off new self-clouds too if you want, but in effect one cloud of you could have as many friends as a whole bunch of separate yous could have, while still only counting as one you in terms of how many friends the rest of you needed to keep track of. I might not be explaining this right. If you like the idea, though, I can see about making a power for it.

That would be AMAZING!

Oh my gosh!

She draws stars around the notebook's suggestion.

I fork a lot, because there were (and are!) a lot of things that need my attention, and I get along with myself unusually well, and care about a lot of projects that benefit from the parallelism.

And I love being able to do that -- I don't regret it in the slightest -- but it does come with a cost. It comes with the cost that my old friends are not capable of staying friends with all of me, and that because of that I've had to say goodbye to a lot of people.

One of the big projects we're working on is a way to share memories, partly because it's important fundamental neuroscience research, but partly because if we can figure out how to expand and share our memory like that, we can stop leaving people behind.

 

Self-Reflection will help with that a lot, I think, because it will mean I don't need to leave the rest of me behind to go out into the multiverse. But a softer form of forking or a boost to memory or something like that would make sure I don't need to leave anyone behind.

Okay! I'll work on that. It shouldn't be too long, I think I have a pretty solid idea for it already and it feels like the sort of thing that should be possible.

I'm going to have to triage some of the nice-to-have powers for points, I think.

 

After that we've got Sorry About That through Tragic Backstory -- I think these are definitely not for me. I want people to let me know if I've been messing things up.

Sense of Style and Bonus Style Points seem fine. I can just tell people what I like, though, and help them go clothes shopping or get cosmetic surgery or something if they're having trouble dressing up, so I don't really feel like I need to have the Spirit's guarantee. It would be nice to let people shapeshift into forms that are more comfortable for them, but having them only able to do so in order to dress up for me sounds a bit squicky.

That makes a lot of sense! I agree it doesn't sound like those powers are for you.

I have your forking power ready! I'm really proud of it... I'm not sure where the name came from, though. Sometimes those just sort of happen.

Name: Chaser Six When - Cost: 4 ☐
(Requires Time Enough For Love and Self-Reflection)
Two of you who are near each other can decide to merge, becoming a conjoined double consciousness sharing two bodies. One of you can decide to fragment, adding a body and a conjoined consciousness to drive it. You can share with yourselves not only messages but direct mind-to-mind transmission of thoughts and memories across any distance. Your fragments can narrow themselves down to focus on embodying specific mental states or orienting themselves to specific tasks, in a way that's fully reversible and doesn't make them any less you; they can also split off into discrete forks just as easily as discrete forks can conjoin themselves with each other. Fully merging conjoined selves into a completely unified being with only one you's worth of mind is also possible, but takes more time and effort and can't be done as fluidly.

Oh goodness! This is going to be so great!

She takes a moment to imagine being all of herselves again. She'll finally be able to catch up on their neuroscience research, and understand how the generic background music system works, and all the thousand other things that have summaries sitting in their shared notes that she hasn't gotten around to because dimensional engineering is just as engaging.

... this is going to cause such a dramatic change in the graph of her polycule. They're going to go from being a mostly decentralized mass to being a hub-and-spoke network. That's probably not the most important part, but it is funny to think about. The network diameter is going to be so low!

I'm really glad you can generate powers that fit me so well.

She looks at the point total.

Yikes. That takes me down to -10, I think.

I don't think Popular, Famous, or Undiplomatic Immunity are my speed for basically the same reason as the other friendship powers I didn't want, though. So unless there are more perfect custom powers to fit in, I only need to find 10 points of things to cut.

 

You've been really good at coming up with powers -- do you have any recommendations for drawbacks? I do have my eye on Style of Sisyphus as not sounding so bad, and I feel like between us we can probably come up with a good custom drawback.

The thing to think about, when thinking about custom drawbacks, is... which of the things in the drawback list seem to you like they wouldn't be very bad or might even be nice, and why? What other ways can you imagine the essential underlying nature of these powers could run wild that wouldn't be very bad or might even be nice? What powers or combinations of powers do you have that could imply downsides that might be inconvenient for some people but that you would be fine with embracing? What things could go wrong for you or turn out unexpectedly that your powers currently forbid, but you might be okay with making an exception if it was the right shape of exception?

Hmm ... thinking of drawbacks seems pretty hard.

 

So the drawback that really stood out to me as being a positive was Incomplete -- I don't want mind-affecting powers, and you've made me some custom versions of things that are less mind-affecting for me.

Is there something like Incomplete, but moreso?

Let me see if I can find anything on that... ⏳

She hums to herself as she tries to think of other potential drawbacks.

As for what synergies between powers would cause problems ...

 

I guess the appearance powers could cause problems. Specifically, if my hair and eyes and height and outfit are all changing, people might have a pretty hard time recognizing me? That sounds awkward. Is that something that the Spirit would normally protect me from, or just a natural consequence of the powers?

I found an upgrade to Incomplete that I think you'll like! And a few other options that seem relevant...

Name: Nullified - Grants: +1 ☐
(Requires Incomplete)
Any aspects of your powers that would affect the minds of others in ways they might not like will instead not do that.

Name: Very Distinctive - Grants: +3 ☐
(Requires at least three of: A Thousand Ships, Angelic Tones, Emerald Orbs, Perfect Hair, Size Difference, Dressing Room, Like Roses, Well Endowed)
You cannot successfully disguise yourself to anyone who has met you in your normal identity. Even someone who has only seen you at a distance or heard about your style might notice similarities.

Name: Flashy - Grants: +2 ☐
(Requires Very Distinctive and at least five of: A Thousand Ships, Angelic Tones, Emerald Orbs, Perfect Hair, Size Difference, Dressing Room, Like Roses, Well Endowed, Mysterious Allure)
Stealth just doesn't work for you. If someone has any opportunity to notice your presence, they will.

Name: Great Responsibility - Grants: +4 ☐
When someone calls out to you for help, you can hear it no matter how far away you are, and you know exactly how they feel.

... huh! I find Very Distinctive surprising, because that's pretty much the opposite of how I thought it might work.

That said -- Nullified: Yes, that's perfect.

Great Responsibility: Wow, this one sounds great. I mean, I can see why it would be an overwhelming drawback, especially if you weren't positioned to help people. But if I can use Chaser Six When to have enough attentional capacity to handle it, then this is really nice.

She updates her list and then stares at the new drawbacks for a moment.

So those two take me up to negative five again. I feel like Flashy is probably a step too far, because sometimes stealth is a genuinely useful tactic, but Very Distinctive sounds probably okay, especially if it prevents people from having trouble recognizing me.

It also takes away some of the disadvantage of Style of Sisyphus, so I can grab that too.

That leaves me at negative one -- I can probably find a one or two point power to drop.

We can also keep trying to think of new possible drawbacks! There might be more available in the vein of Great Responsibility - I think it's thematically tied to the idea of being treated as a god, which is certainly a risk of going around being very beautiful and powerful and special in a lot of places.

... she never really planned on being a god, but she's not going to avoid it when that seems to be the path she's on. She did notice that powerful magic, the ability to pay attention to many things simultaneously, and being able to hear prayers for assistance is pretty much the minimum portfolio required.

What other things are associated with being treated like a god?

I guess needing to establish rituals or having a cult wouldn't be too bad? People feeling afraid of me is ... probably going to happen no matter what I do, but I want to minimize it.

I guess if people were really serious about treating me like a god, there would be a lot of assassination attempts. That wouldn't be so bad.

 

I might be barking up the wrong tree, though. Could you say more about what you mean when you say "treated like a god"? The image that's coming to mind is being hand-fed grapes and fanned with palm fronds, which is ... probably not the right kind of thing.

Hmmm... it's hard to put into words. Maybe it'll be easier to put it into powers. Let me see. ⏳

I should probably also figure out which existing power I'm least attached to, so that I have something to compare new drawbacks against. Let's see ...

She goes through her list again.

If I need to, I'm probably okay with dropping Like Roses. It would be nice, and it complements the other appearance powers, but I at least won't smell bad, what with Personal Hygiene.

Name: Helpline - Grants: +3 ☐
(Requires Great Responsibility)
People whose problems you could potentially solve will sometimes instinctively know to pray to you about them. They won't necessarily know anything else about you, or recognize you as the same being they prayed to. You won't necessarily know what their problem is or how to solve it.

Name: Divine Mantle - Grants: +6 ☐
(Requires Helpline and one of Very Distinctive or They'll Know)
For every prayer you answer, it becomes permanently more apparent to everyone who perceives you that you are a power beyond reckoning, limitless in potential, greater than any god whose domain is bounded by a single knot of worlds. You cannot turn this off. At higher levels, this ability begins to broadcast more and more detail regarding how you feel about answering prayers and how the attributes of the prayer and the petitioner affect those feelings.