Yes. It's powerful, but in the kind of way that makes some lives much easier to live than others.

Yeah.

Does Providential Parenthood take my partner's comfort level with having children into account? Like I can imagine being ready to have a child but having sex with someone who isn't but wouldn't be okay not having a part to play.

The power only takes your partner's readiness into account if your readiness depends on it.

Would it be possible to change it so that it does care about whether my partner would be okay with it?

I'm not sure... what situations are you imagining where you would want to have a child even if your partner didn't, but you don't want yourself to be able to have that child?

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding what the power means. One scenario I have in mind is that I might be having sex with two people and while I don't think it would matter to me who my child's other parent was I could see it mattering a lot to them. Does that make sense?

Would the fact that it mattered to them matter to you, though? If it would, the power will take that into account.

Oh, I think I understand now. You just confirmed a little while ago that these powers are a part of me but I think the wording of this power made me forget that. Of course my definition of being ready includes whether my partners are okay with becoming parents. And the power works on my understanding of what ready means at least in large part. Does it sound like I'm understanding correctly now?

Yes, I think so!

I think the only reason it would make sense to want a version of the power that explicitly took your partners' preferences into account would be if you expected your future self to care less about that than you do now, and wanted to make sure that in that case you still wouldn't end up having children that your partners wouldn't want you to have with them. But I think that if you expect your future self to care less about other people than you do now, and you want to make sure that in that case you won't end up doing things that the you of now would disapprove of, becoming really powerful might just be a bad idea in general.

I think I trust who I will be in the future to have good reasons for having changed if they do.

I'm glad you have that kind of trust with yourself!

Thank you. It helps that I'm imagining myself having powers like It Gets Better and Iron Will but I think I trust myself even without those.

I'm interested in the difference between Two Become One and Laugh Together. They sound very different but from other pairs of powers I expect them to be pretty similar.

They're more like two different approaches to the same problem. A lot of people have strong feelings about their intimate moments and want them to happen just right and get upset when they don't, or are anxious about their partners feeling that way. Two Become One solves this by making sure that things happen the right ways; Laugh Together solves it by making it easier to take difficulties and mishaps in stride.

That makes sense. Thanks for explaining.

She checks Laugh Together and then since she apparently forgot to Providential Parenthood. She goes ahead and also checks Bop It for good measure.

I feel like for having sex with humans I wouldn't need Princess and the Dragon. That sounds like it's more something for interacting that way with really different kinds of people. Am I understanding that correctly?

The Princess and the Dragon can help sometimes with having sex with humans, but it's mostly useful for having sex with dragons, ghosts, beehives, planets, and abstract concepts, yes.

Tom snorts.

... why would someone want to have sex with a beehive? Even a planet feels like it makes more sense than that.

Some beehives are people and some people like those people!

"Well that's me told then."

It sounds like there are a lot more sorts of people than I imagined there being before today.

The multiverse is a really, really, really, really big place.

It would have to be, even this one universe is bigger than I can really wrap my head around. I think I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around all these new types of people I might meet so for the moment I'm going to leave this unchecked.

This does make me wonder a little if I should rethink Dragon Fairy Elf Witch but I don't think I'm going to do that right now.

That makes sense! Those powers might be something you'll want after years and years of wandering the multiverse and meeting new kinds of people, but it can be hard to get a sense of how much you'll want them without wandering the multiverse meeting new kinds of people for a while first.

If you're still having a hard time deciding by the time you finalize your choices, you could leave points open for them without taking them. That way, if you do grow into someone who would really benefit from those powers, they will probably develop, and if not, the unrealized potential of those points will be waiting to form different powers for you if you ever really need them.

Oh, that's great. I'll definitely keep that in mind. Do I need to keep five points free for a five point power? It sounded like that wasn't how things work but I'm not sure if I was understanding right.

If you're hoping for a specific power or set of powers to show up later if you need them, then yes, you should keep enough points open that you could have used those points to choose those powers.

That's a lot of points to leave open but I guess I'll have to see what things look like after thinking about things more.

GGG is another power that's for people different than she is.

Before Your Eyes is... intriguing.

I have a thought about using Before Your Eyes to help people do the things that they want to do but can't quite convince themselves to. It looks like that's within the letter of the power but I'm wondering if that's stretching it. My expectation is that centrally this is about people doing things I would find arousing.