"I think... if you had the right magic or technology you could fix climate change even without anyone else helping. And with enough power you could make people do what you say or make changes unilaterally. That isn't how you tend to think about problems and I agree with you that it's usually not a great way to think about problems. Maybe this is an exception though. I don't know."

She shakes her head and then in a monotone. "All hail Sapphire Goddess and Empress of Earth." She huffs a little laugh. "I don't think that's really me. I guess I should ask the Notebook."

"Actually... I'm just realizing we're falling into a false dichotomy. Just because I'm leaving doesn't mean I have to personally get the ability to fix everything and come back with it. I could meet people or groups who could help. That could actually be nice."

"That's true... it did say that it would send you wherever was best for you. And I'm pretty sure that means somewhere you can make things better by helping people understand themselves and the people around them better."

"Yeah... that sounds right. I'm still not sure but that makes it feel like a real option... not just something someone else might want."

"I'm glad I could help, even if you did most of the thinking yourself."

"Thanks. Let's just cuddle a bit longer before we go back."

In response he kisses her again and hugs a little tighter.

They pass another little while like this before getting up and returning to get desk.

Oh thanks, that's something I wrote a few years ago I'm glad you liked it.

I like the way the words fit together.

I'll have to copy out some of my other poems for your later.

I'm gonna let my sister sit back down now we talked a bit about destinations after lunch.

Okay!

By the way, I've been working on those custom powers and I have drafts for a few of them. (I'm still working on the tweak to Bonus Style Points... it's a tricky one!)

Name: Undressing Room - Cost: 3 ☐
(Requires Dressing Room)
The question of what clothes you are wearing no longer has a specific well-defined answer, but depends on the interactions you're having and how you prefer to be clothed for the purpose of those interactions. You could walk into a room and sit down in a chair, and be naked to all the people in the room but wearing underwear from the perspective of the chair; you could attend a fancy ball and be wearing a fancy ballgown to most people, but let your friends see you in a banana costume instead; you could let someone's hands pass through clothing that their eyes can still see. It may take some practice to become well-attuned to your new sense of how each person and object you interact with is perceiving your state of dress, but you'll always be able to tell if you take a moment to wonder.

Name: Pacifist - Cost: 6 ☐
Fights don't happen to you. Any violent conflict you might otherwise get into is either avoided by coincidence, or replaced with a yelling match, game, contest, race, or dance battle, whichever is most appropriate to the situation. Powers you have that give you advantages in fights also apply to fight replacements.

Name: Reaching Out - Cost: 4 ☐
(Replaces Before Your Eyes)
Your presence is a catalyst that encourages people to let go of preconceptions and constraints and have the courage to try things that they might like even if they're new or unfamiliar or scary. However that turns out, it will ultimately help those people understand themselves and their desires, and won't do lasting damage physically, emotionally, or socially to anyone involved.

Sapphire takes over the seat at the desk and reads through the new powers carefully.

I love Reaching Out. That's near the core of my ideal image of what I want my life to be. I'm curious how it's impacted by nullified though especially the part about not doing lasting damage.

Nullified does make that part slightly less effective, but there are a lot of ways to make sure something doesn't hurt people that don't involve affecting their minds directly. And many people approve of being helped in that way, so in that case Nullified won't be a problem.

That makes sense thanks.

Undressing room is basically exactly what I was picturing and I like it a lot. It does make me think back on choosing Crazy Train though. I think having control over what I'm wearing or not wearing is important to me and I don't have a good sense of what it would mean for that to be controlled by the narrative instead. Is there more you could tell me about what I might expect there?

Most likely you would usually end up wearing what you wanted to wear anyway, but sometimes the narrative might choose to show someone an unexpected banana costume if there was a good reason, and sometimes you might try to change your outfit and end up in something different from what you imagined. The narrative does still want you to have nice things, but it also wants to make a good story.

Thanks for explaining I'll have to think about that some more.

She checks Undressing Room and Reaching Out.

I'm not as sure about Pacifist. Specifically, the replacement part feels discordant. As one example, if the other person's goal is to hurt me I can't really imagine agreeing to sit there and endure it just because I didn't dance well enough.

If someone wants to hurt you when you don't want to be hurt, that seems like the kind of conflict that ends up avoided by coincidence, since even if you had a dance battle about it, them wanting to hurt you when you don't want to be hurt would still count as a violent conflict afterward.

Huh, I didn't think it would work that way. The other scenario coming to mind would be some sort of protest. I think that protests getting violent is usually a matter of small things snowballing though so it makes sense if coincidence management could prevent that. Hmm, what else? If I went somewhere where there was a war happening would I just be steered away from anywhere where an actual battle was happening or would actual battles start getting replaced like that?

I'm having a hard time imagining situations where people care enough for something to normally be a fight but not enough to turn it into a fight when they lose. I guess this would mean I mostly meet people who care a lot about keeping their promises?

Yes, the results of Pacifist could look pretty strange in some of those situations. It's a new power, so I'm not exactly sure how to expect it to come out. I think it will mostly steer you away from battles, but if you were determined to interfere in battles then they could start being replaced by other things.

If powers can change the world around me like that I wonder if it would be possible to get a power that's more towards making the world nicer in general instead of specifically having less fights.

Oh! Let me think about that...

Sure, while you're doing that I'll start looking over my choices again. Actually, before I do that, custom drawbacks are also something you can make right? Do you have any advice on how to ask for good ones?

My best advice for asking about custom drawbacks is to think of things that other people might find inconvenient that you would mind much less than they would, particularly things involving... this can be a little tricky to describe... do you see how a lot of the existing drawbacks are sort of, the same kind of specialness that the powers are built around, but running wild and getting into trouble instead of channeled nicely into doing only good things? Does that make sense?

I think so, it's like how I wouldn't mind the veil if there wasn't someone I cared for as much as my Brother who I would be mysteriously disappearing from. The drawbacks close off certain ways of using the powers or ways of living with them.