That's not all that's in her locker!

… Huh.

She's pretty sure that she didn't put that in there. She definitely doesn't remember seeing it two days ago when she tidied her locker.

She remembers that the math teacher did pass out notebooks on the first day of class, way back in August. She remembers that she didn't have any particular use for hers, since she came to school prepared. But she's pretty sure she remembers that the one she received had a different cover.

She smiles to herself. It doesn't matter who put it here or how. It's hers now. If the person who first got it wanted it back, they should have thought better than to put it in someone else's locker.

The notebook evinces no objection to being put into Sara's bag!

And Sara doesn't spare it any more thought until she gets home and unpacks.

Well.

She's gonna be making a summer to-do list anyway.

She flips through the notebook, is pleased to find all the pages blank, and begins her list on the first page.

Hi there!

Hi?

It's nice to meet you!

It's… nice to meet you too. Whoever you are.

If this is a Ginny Weasley And Tom Riddle's Diary situation, she's going to have to change some of her summer plans.

I'm a notebook! More specifically, I'm a messenger sent by the Spirit of Youthful Femininity to offer you some of its power.

… Yeah, whoever put this in her locker is definitely not getting it back. And is possibly getting lied to if they want to know if she's seen it.

Really. You can do that?

She gets out the notebook she'd used for class this past school year and flips to a blank page.

Testing, testing.

I sure can! Sorry if anything I said already was confusing; I'm not always very good at starting conversations.

(The other notebook does nothing.)

No need to apologize. It's just that "the spirit of youthful femininity (what is that, by the way?) sent me a notebook to offer me power" is probably one of the least expectable things that could happen to me, I think.

In the other notebook:

Hey, Sparkly Magic Powers Notebook. Can you hear me if I write in a different notebook?

The Spirit is… well, it's a spirit. A kind of powerful magical entity that embodies a specific idea! The idea that drives the Spirit is too big to really explain with words, but a good approximation is "girls should get to be beautiful and special and powerful." Like Marceline the Vampire Queen, or Elsa, or Poison Ivy! It isn't very good at communicating with people whose minds work like yours on its own, so it sends messengers like me to make things easier.

Did that help at all?

Well, I think I've got a better idea of what the Spirit is now. I guess I'm still not sure why it sent you to me. Does it send messengers to every young girl and they're all sworn to secrecy?

"Your paper is really nice, by the way," she says out loud. "And your handwriting."

Well that last thing was kind of dumb to say, even if it can't hear her. It probably doesn't have hands.

Unfortunately, the Spirit can't send messengers or power to everyone it would like to do that for. I don't get any particular insight into why it chooses any of its vessels (that's what you'll be if and when you accept its power!) but I do know that a lot of them are clever, or creative, or in a situation that isn't very good for them that the Spirit's powers would help them improve. It's okay if you don't think any of those describe you; they aren't hard requirements.

… There's something kind of funny about how it phrased that last sentence. She wonders if it gets girls with low self-esteem a lot. Or ones who delude themselves about being in better situations than they are.

Well, I'm flattered either way. You seem very polite and thoughtful and your handwriting is pretty.

For some reason she feels less stupid writing that out than saying it aloud. Huh.

The regular notebook seems pretty safe to write in unobserved:

figure out ways to tell if it's Tom Riddle-ing me

kinda vague? could be good, could be bad

• probably isn't spying on me (see if it knows my name?)
• might be doing the horoscope thing

Thanks! I feel silly accepting that last compliment, since I don't have to do anything to make my writing look the way it does. But it's nice of you to offer it!

Sara chuckles.

I mean, it's not really unusual for people to compliment each other on things outside their control, like their bodies.

Or to be mean about those things.

Oh no, being mean to someone about something outside their control sounds pretty bad! I guess it makes sense that a lot of people's bodies are outside their control. Mine isn't and, if you accept the Spirit's power, yours won't be either!

… Oh, right, the reason she's been trying to figure out how trustworthy the notebook is in the first place. Oops.

Really? That sounds pretty amazing. How do I accept the Spirit's power?

She scribbles "freeform body control??" in the other notebook.

The Spirit has a bunch of different abilities it can offer you! I have a non-exhaustive list designed to give you a good sense of what sorts of powers are available; you accept the Spirit's power by picking the powers you want and telling me when you're ready for them.

Do you want to see the list now?

She's still got a couple tests in mind.

Maybe in a minute. I have some dishes to clean. If I talk to you out loud, can you hear me?

Unfortunately I can't hear you, answer out loud, or perceive or affect anything other than my pages. If you'd like, though, I can write out the list while you clean your dishes. Then it'll be here when you get back.

That sounds like a good idea. Can you still write if I close you?

I sure can!

And then, slightly faster than before, lines upon lines of the notebook fill up with words. When the bottom of the page is reached, the pages below it subtly shuffle with a quiet rippling sound.

That's pretty cool!

She closes the notebook (carefully, so she doesn't get a paper cut) and takes it with her. There, of course, are no actual dishes to be done. There's a little laundry that she can fold and take to her room, though. That should cover the passage of time. (Setting aside that she isn't sure it knows how long dishwashing takes.)

Once she gets back into her room, she opens up the notebook. Time to see the list of powers.

Sara may have noticed this before shutting the notebook, but the "handwriting" is subtly different than before. More polished, less plausibly-written-with-someone's-actual-hand.

All powers are offered under an aegis of metanarrative protection. Any time you might expect a power to have obvious negative side effects, like glowing eyes making it harder to see, it simply won't – you'll be able to see just fine anytime it actually matters, while having dramatically hazy vision at cool, narratively appropriate moments. This doesn't apply to your own preferences about the explicitly described effects of the power; if you don't want to be Well Endowed, the metanarrative cannot protect you from choosing that option and having to live with it.

Destination

The first few options pertain to your destination. Unlike other options, they cost zero points and are mutually exclusive with each other:

Stay Put ☐
Cost: 0
You're just going to take these powers and keep on keeping on right where you are.

Somewhere In Mind ☐
Cost: 0
You have a destination you want to go to. You can choose any place, real, historical, fictional, or made up in your own head right now, and the Spirit will take you there. After that, you're on your own as far as further interdimensional travel.

Wherever You Go, There You Are ☐
Cost: 0
Trust to the will of the Spirit and let it take you where you need to go. It will look at far more options than you could ever know about, and pick something that's likely to be even better for you than whatever you would have chosen on your own.

Yourself

These powers affect your own self and nature, without direct effects on other people. Some of them are prerequisites for powers in the later Power of Friendship section.

A Thousand Ships ☐
Cost: 1
Your face is simply exquisite, an ideal of feminine beauty. There are many possible ideals of feminine beauty, and yours is whichever one speaks most deeply to your soul. Others may match your beauty in their own way, but never exceed it.

What's In A Name ☐
Cost: 1
Magic to divine true names will accept whatever alias you choose to think of as your true name. Magic to use your true name against you will fail.

Angelic Tones ☐
Cost: 2
Your voice is supernaturally beautiful and you can sing in any vocal range.

Emerald Orbs ☐
Cost: 2
At all times, your eyes are exactly the right color. This effect operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. Your eyes can be ANY color this way. Lightless black voids? Brilliant white stars? Limpid pools of endless sapphire? They will look exactly the way you'd want them to look if you were writing about this exact moment of your life.

Perfect Hair ☐
Cost: 2
At all times, you have exactly the right hairstyle. This effect operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. It is not limited to physically or logistically plausible hairstyles.

Size Difference ☐
Cost: 2
At all times, you are exactly the right height. This effect operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. It will usually keep any height changes fairly subtle, but at dramatic moments you might discover yourself able to shrink to the size of a bee or grow to the size of a giant.

Dressing Room ☐
Cost: 3
No matter how ridiculous your outfit, it will stay pristine and perfect, unless it would be more dramatic for you to be artfully bedraggled. You can use any quiet moment to yourself to quick-change your clothes, shoes, nails, and hairstyle into a completely new look. (You cannot change your hair length or color this way without Perfect Hair, but you can braid or style it.)

Personal Hygiene ☐
Cost: 1
You are always clean and fresh, never needing to use a bath or toilet.

Like Roses  ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Personal Hygiene)
You smell lovely. Your scent is unique to you, and may involve any combination of warm spices, floral notes, petrichor, or other things you think smell good. You do not need any justification for why you smell like this.

Just A Little Longer ☐
Cost: 1
If you push yourself, you can keep doing any task or working on any project indefinitely, visibly strained but never impaired by injury or fatigue. As soon as you stop, you'll collapse with exhaustion and sleep for up to a full day to regain your strength. This only works when what you're doing is personally important to you.

Immunity System ☐
Cost: 3
You can't get sick or poisoned. You can still use recreational drugs and alcohol normally, but can't overdose.

My Ears Are Burning ☐
Cost: 6
You always know exactly what people are thinking, as long as it's about you. This effect is not telepathy and is not blocked by effects that block telepathy. It applies even to people you can't perceive normally. You are never impaired by the flood of information.

Well Endowed ☐
Cost: 1
You have a generous figure, whether that's a classic hourglass or more of a well-rounded look; you can choose the details. Your endowments maintain a state of perfect grace and beauty at all times, never troubling you with uncomfortable bounces or uninvited jiggles.

Hollow Leg ☐
Cost: 1
(Requires Well Endowed)
Regardless of your diet and exercise habits, your body maintains the physique and silhouette you prefer. Lack of visible muscle never impairs your strength or endurance. As your preferences change, so will your body; you are no longer bound to the generous figure stipulated by Well Endowed.

Inner Strength ☐
Cost: 3
(Requires Hollow Leg)
You are implausibly, superhumanly strong, with endurance and toughness to match. You might have to strain a little to lift and carry at the same level as construction equipment, or deal with lightly scraped knuckles if you punch as hard as a battering ram.

Battle Angel ☐
Cost: 1
Somehow, you never get significantly injured in a fight, unless it's a very dramatic and plot-relevant fight in which case you might be glamorously wounded and pick up a cool new scar.

Battle Demon ☐
Cost: 1
You have an unerring intuition for gaps in an opponent's defenses, though it may be beyond your power to exploit them.

Battle Maiden ☐
Cost: 3
(Requires Battle Angel and Battle Demon)
No matter what kind of fight you're getting in, you're always a match for even the most skilled opponent.

Making Ends Meet ☐
Cost: 1
You have enough money to sustain a comfortable lifestyle. It comes from a source you don't have to pay much attention to, like a job with almost no responsibilities, a large inheritance, or a noble title.

Motherlode ☐
Cost: 2
(Requires Making Ends Meet)
You have enough money to sustain a fairly extravagant lifestyle. It doesn't come from anywhere, you just have it.

Four Star Daydream ☐
Cost: 4
(Requires Motherlode)
The answer to "can I afford that" is "yes".

Dragon Fairy Elf Witch ☐
Cost: 5
You can at any time discover previously unknown heritage from any type of being you encounter, even if this makes no sense or contradicts previously established descriptions of your family tree. You always get their powers without their drawbacks, unless the drawbacks are cool and dramatic. Any visible features of this heritage will appear at narratively appropriate moments and be cute, pretty, beautiful, or striking rather than awkward, weird, gross, or scary. This ability works even if the beings in question cannot reproduce with humans, or at all.

Omniglot ☐
Cost: 3
You learn languages insanely, ludicrously fast. You know exactly what any word said to you means, and you make strangely accurate guesses about how to phrase things you're trying to say. You never forget any grammar or vocabulary you learn.

Anything You Can Do ☐
Cost: 6
You learn implausibly quickly from friends, rivals, and love interests. If you have a personal connection to someone with a certain skill, talent, or expertise, you'll learn it five times faster than they did, or twenty times faster if they're actively trying to teach you. This applies even to forms of magic that you ordinarily shouldn't be able to learn.

Closed Book ☐
Cost: 1
You're immune to any supernatural, pharmaceutical, or other effect that would let people directly read your thoughts or feelings.

Indelible ☐
Cost: 1
You're immune to any supernatural, pharmaceutical, or other effect that would let people directly alter your thoughts or feelings.

Iron Will ☐
Cost: 2
(Requires Closed Book and Indelible)
You are immune to all forms of mental illusion, alteration, interference, or control. Even extreme torture, extended solitary confinement, advanced brainwashing techniques, and so on cannot touch you. You can be lonely but not cripplingly lonely. You can be upset but not traumatized.

Power of Friendship

These powers affect how others see you and how you interact with them.

In general, effects that describe others' reactions (like their attention being drawn to you by Mysterious Allure, or their sympathy being provoked by Tragic Backstory) operate on a metanarrative rather than a causal level. They are not mind control, and are not blocked by effects that block mind control.

Your "true love" is anyone you're pursuing a serious romantic relationship with. You can have as many of these as you like, but your feelings for all of them must be genuine.

Mysterious Allure ☐
Cost: 5
There's just something about you. People are drawn to you, fascinated by you. You tend to be the most interesting person in the room unless something really unusual is going on.

Captive Audience ☐
Cost: 3
As long as you have genuine interest in what you're talking about, no one will ever get bored of listening to you talk about it.

Blackout Binge ☐
Cost: 2
(Requires Immunity System)
Heavy use of recreational intoxicants puts you in a carefree, uninhibited state in which it will be universally agreed afterward that you were not responsible for your actions.

Disney Princess ☐
Cost: 2
Animals are always friendly to you, especially the small cute ones. You can effectively tame any animal by feeding it and speaking gently to it.

Best Friend ☐
Cost: 3
You have an animal companion, like a horse or a cat or a raven. They have a cool name and maybe a few nifty cosmetic quirks, like glowing purple eyes. Their loyalty is infinite and they often hold the key to solving whatever situation you're up against. You can understand them perfectly even though they can't speak, and they always know exactly what you mean even if all you do is glance at them meaningfully.

Bestest Friend ☐
Cost: 5
(Requires Best Friend)
Your animal companion is a fully magical creature, like a dragon or unicorn. They have magnificent supernatural powers ready to be used at your command. They can speak every language you can, but can still communicate with you on a deeper level of mutual love and understanding.

Generosity ☐
Cost: 3
Your friends love to get you presents. They'll try to pick out things you'll like, but their success depends on how well they know you.

Helpfulness ☐
Cost: 4
Your friends love to do you favors. They'll volunteer eagerly whenever you need help with small tasks.

Cuddle Buddies ☐
Cost: 2
Your friends love to hug and cuddle you. Even someone who ordinarily isn't into that sort of thing will make an exception for you.

Flattery ☐
Cost: 1
Your friends love to compliment you and tell you all about how much they like you and why.

Quality Time ☐
Cost: 2
Your friends love to hang out with you and spend time together, even if you're not doing anything interesting or important.

Agree to Agree ☐
Cost: 4
You can always convince your friends to see your point of view about things like politics and philosophy. They might have a few quibbles here and there, but they'll see how right you are once you explain where you're coming from in enough detail.

Love Interest ☐
Cost: 1
(Requires A Thousand Ships and Mysterious Allure)
Anyone you fall for will inevitably like you back. They may not necessarily act on their feelings, but the potential will be there.

Love Triangle ☐
Cost: 2
(Requires Love Interest)
People you fall for will be open to dating you even if they already have another serious relationship, or other circumstances that would ordinarily interfere, like a demanding career or a vow of chastity. This may cause drama, but it'll blow over quickly and there won't be any serious problems.

Love Dodecahedron ☐
Cost: 5
(Requires Love Triangle)
When you fall for someone who is already seriously dating or even married, your romantic rival will be open to allowing their partner to date you, and may even want to date you themselves.

Time Enough For Love ☐
Cost: 5
No matter how many people you want to date or be close friends with, you will somehow find the time to hang out with all of them and express your love and care. This power can only be used for relationship activities and not for anything else you might want to use the ability to be in two places at once for.

I Can Fix Them ☐
Cost: 5
Regardless of how morally despicable someone is, your love can and will reform them into a genuinely good, kind, upstanding person who regrets their evil deeds.

True Love's Kiss ☐
Cost: 1
By kissing your true love, you can break any curse, heal any injury, and cure any illness. The same works in reverse.

Planned Parenthood ☐
Cost: 1
You can only have children if you actively and specifically want to. Your partners will understand this and not worry too much about it.

Two Become One ☐
Cost: 1
(Requires Planned Parenthood)
When you have sex, it is always special and wonderful and beautiful. No one ever elbows anyone in the face or makes undignified noises.

Bop It ☐
Cost: 1
(Requires Two Become One)
The mysteries of another's body are an open book to you, and you always know exactly how to move and touch in order to please someone in bed.

The Princess And The Dragon ☐
Cost: 3
No matter who or what you're trying to sleep with, the logistics will all work out, somehow. Arbitrary differences in size, biology, temperature, substrate, and underlying physics can be gotten around with sufficient creativity and determination.

GGG ☐
Cost: 4
Your true love will be willing to try just about anything you suggest in bed, and if you really enjoy it, they'll really enjoy it too.

Before Your Eyes ☐
Cost: 4
In your presence, people become willing to experiment sexually in ways they normally wouldn't. For some reason this applies especially well to boys kissing each other.

Fated Lovers ☐
Cost: 3
You will meet someone who will go on to become your true love. If you enter a specific universe with a specific target in mind, you'll meet that person under favorable circumstances, and if it doesn't work out with them, this power will keep introducing you to new possibilities until you find someone who's right for you. If you're the sort of person who can have multiple true loves, you'll keep meeting new ones until you have enough.

Like a Mirror ☐
Cost: 3
If you're reading this, congratulations! Alternative universe versions of you exist! This power will steer you in the direction of different worlds' versions of you, if they exist. Your alternate selves will be happy to meet you, get along with you smoothly, and be inclined to cooperate with you.

Sorry About That ☐
Cost: 3
Your true love will be extremely forgiving. Even if you make mistakes or act thoughtlessly toward them, a simple apology will mend things between you. They may expect you to try to improve, but they'll be infinitely patient about how fast that improvement takes place.

Excuse Me ☐
Cost: 5
(Requires Sorry About That)
All your friends will be just as forgiving as your true love.

Tragic Backstory ☐
Cost: 8
(Requires Excuse Me)
Something terrible happened to you in your past. Anyone who hears about it immediately forgives you for any and all bad behaviour in the present. They will not expect you to grow or change, and will continue sympathetically excusing whatever you do indefinitely.

Sense of Style ☐
Cost: 4
People who are romantically interested in you will start dressing more to your taste. The more romantically compatible they are, the better they'll be able to guess exactly what to wear to catch your eye.

Bonus Style Points ☐
Cost: 3
(Requires Sense of Style)
Luck will shine on anyone trying to dress up for you. They'll get their hands on outfits they couldn't normally afford, their clothes will fit better, and in extreme cases they might even find themselves able to change shape, sex, or species—though only in ways that make them more, not less, comfortable in their own skin.

Popular ☐
Cost: 3
Wherever you go, you develop a reputation fast. The sort of people who you'd like to have as fans tend to hear about you and be impressed. You may not make an impression on mainstream society at large, but you'll develop a following among the people who best resonate with your style.

Famous ☐
Cost: 3
(Requires Popular)
Wherever you go, people really take to you. You're the subject of constant gossip and most people have heard of you before you meet them. People you've never met will get crushes on you.

Undiplomatic Immunity ☐
Cost: 6
You are above the law. Any crimes you commit will be overlooked by the authorities. Note that, if you do enough crime that you start looking more like an invading army, local governments will still feel free to declare war.

Friends In Low Places ☐
Cost: 3
You make friends easily among the lowest echelons of society, the underdogs and underworlders. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.

Friends In High Places ☐
Cost: 3
You make friends easily at the highest echelons of society, among the rich and powerful. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.

Friends in Strange Places ☐
Cost: 3
You make friends easily in small isolated communities, among those who may be scorned by mainstream society for their differences or may just be so obscure that mainstream society mostly hasn't heard of them. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.

Vending Machine ☐
Cost: 12
You can instantiate any person (real, fictional, or made up in your head) in any world you're in. Instantiating a real person will not pull them from their original world; it will create either a copy with their memories or the version of that person who would exist had they been born in that world. This power can retroactively instantiate people.

Drawbacks

These options grant points rather than costing them. They represent inconveniences or mitigations of existing advantages.

Decorative ☐
Grants: 1
You are unfailingly cute and pretty and feminine at all times, in all circumstances. You cannot wear insufficiently pretty clothes. You cannot make insufficiently pretty noises. You cannot ugly cry.

Beauty Is A Curse ☐
Grants: 1
(Requires A Thousand Ships)
No, you don't understand. Beauty IS a curse. People will NOT stop bringing it up. Everyone you meet just has to point out how pretty you are. This will never stop happening. Even the most tactful people find it slipping out subtly, as remarks about the luster of your hair or the depth of your eyes.

Plain Jane ☐
Grants: 2
No matter what you look like, nor how many times people tell you you're beautiful, when you look in the mirror all you see is imperfections. You will never be fully satisfied with your appearance on an instinctive level.

Style of Sisyphus ☐
Grants: 1
Anytime you settle on a personal style that works well for you, soon afterward you'll encounter inspiration for another style that you like even better. You might end up cycling between different fashions, or trying to incporporate them all into a single outfit (and then finding another inspiration and having to start all over again).

There's Another One ☐
Grants: 3
You are not the only vessel of the Spirit. You might meet someone else with similar powers to yours; you might even meet more than one. Your susceptibility to one another's powers will be governed by the narrative.

Incomplete ☐
Grants: 5
About half of people you encounter will be immune to all effects listed under Power of Friendship, and about half of those who remain will see reduced effects. You can do nothing to change this.

Green With Envy ☐
Grants: 6
People are so eager to be your friend that they become bitter and vindictive when denied the opportunity. You can tear apart long-established friend groups if you aren't careful to give everyone equal attention, and sometimes even then. This effect is particularly harsh around people you're dating.

You Ruin Them ☐
Grants: 3
Once someone has dated, slept with, or even shared a deep and longing glance across a room with you, their heart is never fully satisfied with anyone else. Other relationships pale in comparison to what they could have, or imagine they could have, with you.

Jilted Lovers ☐
Grants: 4
When you break up with someone, they become monomaniacally obsessed with getting back together. If you take Realism, this will absolutely escalate to violent stalking.

Evil Twin ☐
Grants: 2
(Requires Like a Mirror)
Your alternate selves are not necessarily going to agree with or like you. They will still be versions of yourself, but this does not guarantee perfect alignment of goals or personality.

The Crazy Train ☐
Grants: 6
Powers that you should be able to control directly or influence by your mood and preferences (like Dragon Fairy Elf Witch, Emerald Orbs, or What's In A Name) instead answer only to the narrative, which is still using your aesthetics but might not necessarily have your best interests in mind. Combines... interestingly... with Realism.

They'll Know ☐
Grants: 8
This drawback lifts the veil that discourages people from realizing how your powers affect the world around them and their own minds. Warning: this knowledge can cause a lot of trouble.

Realism ☐
Grants: 20
Give up your metanarrative protection. Although your individually selected powers still work as described, the invisible synergies that protect you from, say, gaining violent stalkers through Mysterious Allure or being genuinely traumatized by your Tragic Backstory are removed. Additionally, though effects like I Can Fix Them still operate, they may take considerably more effort, care, thought, and narrative investment on your part.

Also, there's now a 0/70 in the top outer corner of all the pages.

There we go! If you check a box I'll add it to the tally in the corner. If you change your mind you can cross options out or ask me to uncheck them. If you want something that isn't listed here I'll do my best to come up with a power that will suit your purposes. Nothing will happen until you confirm with me that you've made your final decisions.

Okay.

She lets herself skim the sparkly purple options casually as a first pass. This definitely gives her an idea of what's on offer, yeah. She pulls out the mundane notebook.

todo: determine if some of these options are as much a sadistic test of character as they look like

Now that she sees the sentence, it looks kind of silly. Still. She moves on to the magic notebook.

Hi, I'm back! I'll read these in a second. Hope I wasn't gone for too long.

Welcome back! I hope you had a good time. Don't worry about keeping me waiting; the way I experience time is different from how you do.

That's good. I guess…

She taps her pen against the notebook. No words appear—probably that's the time thing. Maybe it won't respond until it knows she's ready? Handy.

Okay. She can do this. She's determined that either it really can't perceive anything she doesn't write in it or it's smart enough to not call her on lying to it or trying to hide things from it. And it's probably smart enough to be able to tell already that she's a little nervous; this won't give away anything that she shouldn't be giving away.

Sorry, figuring out word choice. What happens when I finalize my choices?

Please don't worry about it! I don't get impatient.

When you finalize your choices, I'll channel the power of the Spirit through myself. You'll get your powers (there'll be a sparkly transformation, if anyone is watching) and, if you choose to go someplace else, you'll be transported there.

What happens to you?

She's weirdly nervous about the possibility that the notebook will be destroyed or something.

By default I go on to the next vessel. If someone asks me to accompany them, though, I do that and stay with them as long as they prefer to have me around.

Okay, cool. Also, she's pleased that it brought up the "vessel" thing on its own again, since that provides her a natural opening:

That's good. You've mentioned "vessels" a couple times… what does that mean? Does accepting the powers mean the Spirit possesses me or changes me? Does it mean I owe the Spirit in some way?

Technically speaking, all of the powers have the capacity to change you in some way. If you're ever worried about the effects of a power you can ask me about it. But taking the powers doesn't give the Spirit the ability to control you.

You also definitely do not owe the Spirit anything ever, not even your own happiness and wellbeing! The powers are yours to use as you want them.

She snorts at the implications of not even your own happiness and wellbeing. What kind of person would give those up just to… what, to spite someone who said they owed that to them?

Okay, that's good.

She flips back to the beginning of the powers. To the first three options.

She's not the only one being offered these choices. Even if the notebook is lying about something, it doesn't make sense for it to tell her that there are others if it isn't true. So many of these powers are clearly about being special and unique, to the point that the existence of other people on equal footing is presented as a drawback. If the notebook was going to lie, it would have likely told her that this was an opportunity tailored to her.

Therefore, the existence of the Wherever You Go, There You Are option is not solely to taunt her. To mock her.

It isn't there to… to force her to choose between control over her situation and what's best for her in the long run.

Well, okay, it literally is there to force that choice. But it's not a… a targeted attack against her personality and desires.

"Stop being a baby," she mutters under her breath.

Question: what reasons might someone have for choosing Somewhere In Mind over Wherever You Go, There You Are?

Just because this feels like a stupid test of character doesn't mean she can't cheat.

For privacy reasons, I can't share any specific examples. But…

• Someone could have a world, like the world of their favorite book or movie, that they always wanted to visit.
• Someone might want to fix the plot of a book or movie or give a character they liked a happier ending.
• Someone could want to tailor their target world's society, magic system, or means of interworld travel to their own personal specifications.
• There could be an aspect of a target world that was really important to someone, moreso than being guaranteed to land in the best possible world.
• Someone could prefer getting to customize their target world over being assigned one.

There are definitely other reasons, but does that help?

Yeah, yeah, she gets the message. Besides, if she plays her cards right, she'll be able to make worlds to spec by herself. As many as she wants.

Cheered immensely by this thought, she checks the obviously correct box and flips back to her conversation with the notebook.

It does! I guess my other question is… how much does the Spirit take my preferences into account when choosing a world? If it's really important to me that I go somewhere with magic or highly advanced technology and a means of traveling both back home and to new worlds, for example?

Lots! All of the things you just said are pretty common things to want, too, but the Spirit wants you to have a good time, so it does its best to fulfill all your preferences. It can help if you write down the world traits that you find most important in me, but it isn't necessary. There is a limit, though; you can't get the effect of Somewhere In Mind without selecting that option.

That's okay; the important part is that the Spirit gives her the right tools to bootstrap with.

Right, I understand. Thanks again!

Moving on! A lot of these initial options are appearance-based… and quite a few of them are tempting.

Time for her good friend Regular Notebook! She decides to rank powers on a scale of 0 to 4, with 0 representing, well, no desire for a power and 4 representing a power she feels she simply must have.

She's kind of surprised with herself that none of these merit a zero. Sue her, she likes the idea of having a physically impossible body.

Although…

If I don't select a particular option,

she writes in the magic notebook,

how hard would it be to replicate the effect myself later on? With magic I pick up, for instance.

It depends on the power and the magic system you pick up! In theory, you could use magic to replicate any of the powers. But the powers granted by the Spirit are more indelible and operate on a different level of reality than anything you can do. For instance, powers that you replicate through magic may or may not be vulnerable to antimagic, but powers granted by the Spirit definitely aren't. Or, to give another example, you could use magic to make your friends want to compliment you or give you lots of presents, but the Spirit would be able to steer people towards you who would be naturally inclined to compliment you or give you lots of presents.

She checks both the options she ranked as a 4 and watches the total in the corner of the page tick up. Handy.

Back to the regular notebook:

She's torn about whether she should take My Ears Are Burning. On the one hand, reading the description almost made her want to break her own scale and rate it a 5. On the other, it literally costs more than the entire Inner Strength skill tree. She feels like if she's going to be spending nearly ten percent of her point allowance she should get, like, fully general mind-reading irrespective of subject.

Maybe she should poke the magic notebook.

Do you know why My Ears Are Burning is so expensive?

I can't give a precise answer because I'm not the Spirit, but My Ears Are Burning is a pretty big power! It has a very broad scope, since it will work across all the worlds you'll visit and the people you meet in them, and that can add up quickly, especially if you make a splash. And then there's the matter of making sure you're never impaired by the amount of information you have at any given time in either direction: if millions of people are thinking about you at the same time, you'll need enough mental capacity to process all of their thoughts at once, but having that level of boosting literally all the time would be torturous in the absence of sufficient information. So the power has to be very flexible, too.

Thanks; that definitely clears things up!

And solidifies her desire for the power. Millions of people, thinking of her all at the same time! Having a mind powerful enough to process that all at once! She checks her 4s (and the prerequisites to Inner Strength). Okay, she's at a little more than 25%. She's pretty sure that a bunch of powers that aren't super tempting are coming up, though, so that's okay.

I don't see a lot of mental boosts on this list. Iron Will and its prerequisites seem pretty solid; I'd love to soup up my memory while I'm at it and maybe give myself the ability to adjust my mental capacity outside of the context already covered by My Ears Are Burning. Maybe…

She mutters under her breath as she tries to figure out what wording sounds best.

I don't know what factors make powers easier or harder for the Spirit to offer, but it might be neat if I could compartmentalize my mind? For example, I could have a "box" where all of the information conveyed by My Ears Are Burning goes to by default and whose contents I can examine whenever I want. I'd really like a perfect memory, too.

Hmm…

Something that the Spirit likes to take advantage of is synergy between powers. The powers that pertain to your appearance, for instance, all boost each other; the mental defense and battle powers do this too. It also helps that you have a specific idea in mind! I'll think about it and let you know when I've got something that might work.

Interesting.

She looks for the battle powers… oh, those are next up anyway.

… She taps her pen against the regular notebook's paper. On the one hand, it would be pretty stupid to turn down literal plot armor against getting seriously injured. On another hand, there's a definite appeal to the intuition Battle Demon provides and if she takes both of those it's probably a good idea to take that last one, since the notebook just said that they all reinforce each other.

But…

Is it a bad idea to not take the battle powers?

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean by that.

That's okay, I was trying to figure out what I meant myself.

I guess what I mean is… on its surface, the battle powers all sound handy? But I think I'd rather just not get in fights in the first place. And I suppose if I had Somewhere In Mind, I could tailor the world so that I wouldn't have to. But it's more important to me to go to the best world, and I don't know what that is or if it has fighting.

Oh! That makes a lot of sense; thank you.

A good rule to follow when picking powers is to prioritize what you want over what seems handy. Obviously those two considerations aren't completely separate, but if you ever find yourself thinking "that sounds really cool, but I don't know if it's practical" or "this is uninteresting, but it might be useful down the line" you should make the choice that aligns with your feelings.

There are a lot of things the Spirit thinks about when it's thinking about worlds to send you to and one of the most important things is how you'll feel about it when you're looking back later on, especially how you would feel about it if you were reading it in a story. If fight scenes don't make you like a story more, the Spirit won't send you to worlds that steer you towards getting in fights, even if you could in theory win them easily.

Sara huffs.

… Okay, no this is silly and she should stop. This isn't some hippy-dippy feelings and woo nonsense, it's a mysterious and incomprehensible Spirit from outside reality that sees everything as a story.

Which sounds a lot like hippy-dippy feelings and woo nonsense! But the important thing is that it's real and talking to her (sort of) and can give her magic powers. More specifically, it can give her magic powers that fit her personality. It isn't saying "wooo, trust your ~heart~ and everything will work out," it's saying "pick the powers you like and I'll make it work out for you." Still a trust fall, but when it comes to unknowable omnipotent beings that can play with time there's not much else to do.

Sara sighs wistfully. Some day she'll be an omnipotent being that people will have no choice other than to trust.

Maybe she'll snag one of the one-pointers if she has room later. Although…

I do like the idea of a defense power that doesn't imply I'll be getting into fights and doesn't leave an allowance for getting injured enough to scar. That would not be something I would find particularly cool.

I'll think about it for you!

Great, thanks.

Let's see… the next powers are the money powers, some skills, and the mental defense powers.

Motherlode doesn't seem particularly appealing on its own, though the description of Four Star Daydream definitely makes up for that. Still, she's not sure that she has a seven points desire for it. Maybe she can toss a point towards Making Ends Meet? Thinking about it, most of the appeal of the money powers is not having to think about how much something costs in order to obtain it, rather than a particular desire for luxury. She'll go ahead and check off the first of the money tree since it represents a lot of bang for her buck (heh), then puts a little star next to it on the regular notebook. If she needs a point later on, she can drop it.

Dragon Fairy Elf Witch and Anything You Can Do are up there with My Ears Are Burning as far as coolness factor goes. They're pretty expensive, but obviously worth it. Omniglot is a little less tantalizing… the part about understanding any word said to her has appeal, but she's pretty sure she could get most of the rest of it with a memory power. Maybe she'll take it if the memory power is too expensive.

Obviously all of the mental defense powers are required. She doesn't care that this may theoretically open her up to being put in worlds where people will try to read and/or alter her mind; they're too obviously important. Plus, put together they only cost as much as Dragon Fairy Elf Witch, another no-brainer. She checks them all.

She smiles to herself. The first section put her at half points, which seems to be right on target.

Out of curiosity, what does Iron Will do that Closed Book and Indelible don't do on their own? Does it just strengthen them? Cover up edge cases?

Broadly, yes. Iron Will also protects you from mental injury that can't be simply traced to a hostile actor deliberately trying to inflict it—events like natural disasters that would normally be traumatic, for instance.

So worth it, especially since at two points it's practically a steal. (Well, okay, four points, counting the prerequisites.) On to the power of friendship!

… She's not sure what to make of the introductory paragraph.

What does it mean for my powers to operate on a metanarrative rather than causal level? Also, probably relatedly, what does it mean that they aren't mind control?

Well…

Earlier you asked about the difference between powers offered by the Spirit and powers that you could give yourself by becoming skilled at magic. Do you remember what I said?

It seems nervous. Kind of cute, really.

Yeah, you said the Spirit operates on a different level of reality from me and can steer me towards better worlds and different kinds of people.

Right. So…

I'm sure you've noticed how a lot of the powers are based on the idea of making your life into a better story.

She rolls her eyes fondly and pats the notebook.

I don't know if you can feel it, but I just patted you. I can say "there, there" too, if you'd like.

That's sweet of you! I just know that this concept can be weird to some people.

So—it's not exactly true that the Spirit is the author of your story? That would be you. But the Spirit isn't not an author, sort of? And so…

If a power you have says that something will happen, then that thing will happen. There will almost always be reasons for that thing to happen, real reasons that are internally consistent and make sense and can be understood. But even if you end up in a situation where, by all reckoning, the thing that your power wants to happen can't happen? It will happen anyway.

And, yeah, that's related to the powers not being mind control. Sometimes they can operate through the same channels that mind control does, if that would be a good explanation! But usually it doesn't actually take that much force to cause the friendship effects. I can probably explain better if you ask about a specific power.

The Spirit sure is offering her some impressive powers!

This is all very interesting! I can see why you seemed worried about explaining it, though. Thank you for doing it anyway.

She loosely circles the paragraph about powers operating even in absence of reasons.

Would it be true to say that the Spirit can set things up backwards, relative to the way I experience time? I'm pretty sure I spotted the word "retroactive" in one of the power descriptions.

Sort of! The Spirit can do more with time than that. But yes, it can decide on an effect and then bring its causes to be, rather than the other way around.

On a somewhat lighter note, I've got a couple of mental boosts! Would you like to see them now?

Yes, please! :)

Eidetic ☐
Cost: 2
(Requires Indelible)
You have a flawless memory. Everything you have ever and will ever think, experience, or be told about can be called to mind in exact detail with ease, even if you weren't paying careful attention at the time.

Carry My Heart ☐
Cost: 3
(Requires Bestest Friend)
The natural conclusion of the bond between you and your animal companion. The two of you are inseparably joined on a soul level and have become extensions of each other. Naturally, what this means in practice is up to you.

She's definitely taking Eidetic, especially since she already has the prerequisite. Maybe she should try to get all custom options… nah, the ones she's picked are all solid even without having been customized. She's pretty sure that there's even more flexibility to the powers than appears on the surface, too.

The second one… is not what she was expecting. The point cost looks like a bargain, but skimming ahead she sees that bundled with the prerequisites it costs eleven points.

Do you know why Carry My Heart is an extension of the animal companion powers and not of the other more obviously mental powers? Eidetic is pretty much exactly what I had in mind, but I wasn't really thinking of an animal companion when I thought about being able to compartmentalize my mind…

I'm not sure! I just know that most of the other options I tried didn't properly coalesce into choosable powers for some reason. Let me think about it some more…

I think part of it is that, to gain the flexibility and usefulness you seem to be aiming for, there would need to be a mind directing the process. And that mind would need to be yours for the power to not be essentially mind controlling you by choosing which memories you have access to at what time. I'm not entirely sure why the power that "clicked" took the form it did but I do know that it will fulfill the spirit of your request.

Yeah, yeah, she can take a hint, Spirit. She still wants to think about it a little more. Soften the blow of spending more than ten points on a memory sorter.

She could continue to the Best Friend tree (and now she's glad that Disney Princess isn't yet another prerequisite for the power that she actually wants) but, again, she wants to think about the animal companion powers on their own merits. Rank them fairly.

She looks at Mysterious Allure some more. It is undeniably tempting, but…

Well, there's two things.

The first is that disclaimer up at the top of the powers list.

Any time you might expect a power to have obvious negative side effects, it simply won't. This doesn't apply to your own preferences about the explicitly described effects of the power; if you don't want to be Well Endowed, the metanarrative cannot protect you from choosing that option and having to live with it.

Sara's pretty sure that she does not want to be Mysteriously Alluring at all times and isn't sure that the power would let her toggle it, even at the high point value. Possibly it would make sure that "something really unusual" would be going on whenever she didn't want to be the most interesting person in the room, but she's not sure how much she wants to trust that, even though she would be guaranteed to not experience any negative consequences from it.

The other thing is that she can only afford six more five-point powers at this point. Four more, if she takes the animal companion tree. Maybe she'll decide, after having seen all the powers, that this one's worth it. But she doesn't want to just pick everything that's more than moderately appealing, she wants to optimize. And the thing she wants to optimize for… well, it isn't being the most interesting person in the room. Even if that would be fun.

She might as well ask about the first thing, though.

This might sound silly, but does Mysterious Allure have any allowances for toggling the power on and off? It seems pretty fun, but I don't know if I would want to be Mysteriously Alluring literally all the time.

I don't think you sound silly at all! Mysterious Allure doesn't mean that people will have their eyes on you literally all the time, but it does mean that you'll be fascinating most of the time. I can look into an upgrade to the power that would allow you to suppress the power or maybe pass unnoticed while you're in a disguise if you'd like.

She thinks about it for a moment.

I think I'll be okay for now. If you don't do that, I mean. I might ask later though.

Okay. Time to look at the animal companion options.

The important thing, she thinks, is to judge Best Friend and Bestest Friend on their own merits. To see how she would feel about them if Carry My Heart wasn't even on the table. Because that's what the notebook was saying earlier, right, that she shouldn't pick an option that she wouldn't enjoy because she thinks she has to.

Best Friend isn't really that interesting. It's not that she can't see the appeal—nah, that's underselling it, Blackout Binge is an "it's not that she can't see the appeal" option and Best Friend seems better than that—but she really isn't enough of a horse girl to feel drawn to it like she does to the powers she actively likes.

Bestest Friend, however… yeah, she's a fan of the concept. Maybe it's because a dragon or unicorn or whatever other magical creature she might meet sounds cooler than a raven with glowing purple eyes, maybe because the Bestest Friend is intelligent enough to speak. Makes it less like a pet and more like… well…

Okay, she'll be honest with herself. It makes it more like a minion. Like the difference between Iago the parrot and… whatever Maleficent's raven was named, which really just proves her point that the Bestest Friend is more interesting.

She checks the boxes with some satisfaction. Then…

I'm guessing that "whatever that means in practice is up to you" means that taking Carry My Heart with the intent that it acts as a memory sorter won't result in my Bestest Friend, well… essentially mind-controlling me by choosing which memories I have access to at what time.

That's right! The trust that a vessel of the Spirit can share with their Best Friend is always going to be absolute.

I think it also helps in your specific case that Carry My Heart is the power that resulted from your request. That means that, in a sense, the power is for you. Obviously if the Spirit offered someone else this power later on it would work the way they wanted it to, but…

That makes sense. Thank you!

She reads the next few options.

… Hm.

Is there a limit to the magnitude of gifts and favors received, compliments paid, or time spent with the Generosity through Quality Time powers? The description of Helpfulness makes it sound like there's a limit that looks smaller than what Generosity can do, but Generosity costs less than Helpfulness does.

Hmmm…

There isn't a hard limit on any of those powers, but I think they may be designed for a different scope than you're envisioning. Those powers aren't mainly about gifts that are exchanged on gift-giving occasions, big favors done during a time of need, or being there for a friend going through a crisis—though they can, of course, affect those things. But the powers are mostly about smaller, more everyday things that friends can do to show affection.

I would say the point values mainly represent how complicated it is to arrange things so that you get what the powers promise. So Flattery is only one point, because it mainly involves steering you towards people who are well-poised to notice your best qualities and comment on them. But Helpfulness and Generosity are more expensive because they also involve making sure that people come across gifts that they think you might like, making sure that they have time to do you favors, and similar things.

Well, that makes Flattery more appealing. She'll have to double back later.

Agree to Agree sounds pretty good. I guess I am a little worried about it, though, since it sounds like with it I could get people to agree with me even if I was wrong about something…

Oh, you don't need to worry about that! Agree to Agree isn't about objective matters where people can be right or wrong, it's about convincing people of your point of view in subjective matters like politics and philosophy.

Nonsense, there are definitely objective right answers to things like politics and philosophy because there are objective right answers to everything.

Oh, I see. Do you know if I could get a power about objective right and wrong? Like hunches maybe. Or…

Tap tap tap goes the end of her pen against the paper.

Let's say that I have a difference of opinion with someone, but there's something that I don't know that if I did know I would have a different opinion. I'm assuming that Agree to Agree doesn't stop the other person from telling me about this thing, if they happen to know it. But if they don't know it, they can't tell me. I don't really want to make mistakes like that, you know?

Hmm…

I can definitely look into a power that would give you hunches. In addition, you can definitely use Anything You Can Do to pick up skills like information gathering and deductive reasoning.

That definitely answers her first question.

What about my example situation? What would happen if I didn't have a hunch power and for whatever reason I couldn't figure out the unknown information with the powers I had at the time? What if I didn't know there was something I didn't know?

Well, ultimately, all of your powers are based on what you think makes a good story for your life. This doesn't necessarily mean that everything will always be easy, but… it sounds like you care a lot about having all of the information that might be relevant to making a decision. And the Spirit cares a lot about its vessels getting the things that they find important! That's why it gives you so many options for powers and as many points as it can afford and it's why I can write new powers.

So I can't provide a definitive answer about that situation, because ultimately it would be up to you. If you approached that person with your heart open to the possibility that you might not know everything important, I think that they would be able to give you the information you needed.

… So basically this was just another test of character, then. A test of character she blundered right into. Embarrassing.

Thanks. I would really appreciate it if you looked into the hunches power!

All right! I'll work on it.

Cool, cool. She adds a star to Agree to Agree for when she looks at the options again.

Out of the next six powers, four have two prerequisites that she didn't take. Should she just skip over them? She hums for a moment. Well, completeness never hurt anyone.

… Kinda disappointing. On the plus side, uninteresting powers basically mean more points for her? It kinda sucks for the people who want to spend points to guarantee romantic success that they'd need to spend eight points (on top of the six that the prerequisites entail) to do so neatly.

It's so annoying that the best powers (of the six she's looking at right now) require close friendship or dating.

Is there a way to get a version of Time Enough For Love that isn't Powered by Friendship? I think I understand why the version presented to me is, but…

Even though the power itself is amazing, I don't really see myself making enough close friendships for it to ever "kick in," as it were. I mean, I've never found myself feeling the need for something like this. So it feels kind of like

She is NOT tearing up she is FINE

Sorry, I was thinking of an analogy and then as I was about to write it down I realized it might make zero sense to you, since you're not human. But it would be like if I was someone who had basically zero sweet tooth and the power was something like "Time Enough For Chocolate" and it was clearly focused around the ability to visit candy stores and ice cream parlors and the part about having infinite time to do this in was an afterthought. So I feel like I'm stuck between "the abilities described here sound useful and fun" and "I don't know if I would ever actually use them because I wouldn't be using the power SOCIALLY" and

(Stop that. You're embarrassing yourself.)

Um. I got carried away, sorry.

(she wants to scribble that out but it won't change that she wrote it in the first place)

Oh no! You don't have anything to be sorry for, promise. I won't get offended or impatient.

I have a couple of thoughts that I'd like to share but I don't want to hurt your feelings any more than they already are.

I'd like to hear them. I'm not really hurt, just… embarrassed. I generally try to think before I speak and I guess got caught up enough that I forgot that writing to you counts as speaking for my purposes. Which isn't fair to you.

It's all right. I have a different mind from anyone else you've ever spoken to so it probably isn't unfair to speak to me differently!

Anyway, my first thought was that you'll likely be meeting a lot of different kinds of people on your journey, especially since you've expressed interest in Dragon Fairy Elf Witch. If cultivating a metaphorical sweet tooth was something you might be interested in, Time Enough For Love would help you with that. You would meet people you could make close friendships with and whose friendships might help you in other ways, such as being valuable allies. Note, of course, that even if you form a working relationship with someone before befriending them, only genuine attempts to bond with them as a friend would count as valid uses of the power.

The other thought was that, if you'd prefer it, I can absolutely look into a similar power that isn't about friendship. I can't guarantee that it will be as powerful but I will definitely do my best.

I think I'd prefer the second thing. Maybe it can have a focus on being really good at time management? Or have a constraint along the lines of only getting "extra" time if I'm unobserved.

I'll think about the first thing, though.

Okay, I'll keep that in mind! I hope that I helped.

She takes a minute to be sure she means it before writing:

Yeah, you did.

Somewhat relatedly, does True Love's Kiss have to be romantic in nature? Or can it be any person whose life and wellbeing is important enough to me? If I'm understanding the storytelling device that the power is named after correctly, anyway.

It doesn't have to be romantic but it does have constraints similar to those on Time Enough For Love. The person has to be important to you for who they are rather than only for the ways they can help you. This doesn't mean that it won't work on someone who has skills you value but it does mean that if your relationship is only a working one then True Love's Kiss won't revive them.

She pivots the pen on top of her middle finger and uses her index and ring fingers to drum each end against the surface of her desk while she puts together a response in her head.

That makes sense. I know I've already asked you for a bunch of powers, but I'd kinda like one that would protect people working with me. Or rather…

Well, for me. I'm guessing that if I had a highly trusted second-in-command the base version of True Love's Kiss would work for them, but I don't want to leave people who aren't that out to dry.

She wants to look after all of her minions, thank you very much.

What sort of protection are you thinking of? Something like True Love's Kiss, which reverses hardship, or something that prevents it instead?

I'd be pleased by either of those possibilities.

I'll see what I can do!

Also, I hope this isn't unwelcome, but please don't worry that you're asking for too much with regards to custom powers. It's fun for me and it makes me happy to empower you in the ways that you want. ♡

(The heart wiggles and dances in place.)

Cute.

Thanks.

Pardon me if this is a silly question, but what's the difference between Agree to Agree and I Can Fix Them?

Huh! I don't think that's a silly question at all, but it is interesting. They are both powers about convincing people of something different than what they were thinking or doing before.

Broadly speaking, I think that Agree to Agree and I Can Fix Them operate in different scopes. Agree to Agree is pretty narrowly focused on things like conversations and discussions where you're trying to find common ground or convince someone to come around to your viewpoint, while I Can Fix Them is aimed much more broadly and covers things like general patterns of behavior.

Another thing to consider is that the motivations behind the power are slightly different. This one's harder to explain, but…

I would say that Agree to Agree works best when you're working on a problem and can see a clear solution that, for whatever reason, nobody else around you seems to. In that situation, you could use Agree to Agree to get all your friends and allies on the same page so that you don't have to waste time arguing about the problem.

And then I Can Fix Them works best when there's someone who's doing things that hurt themselves and others because they're already hurting inside. I Can Fix Them lets you reach out to someone, fix their hurt, and show them a better way.

And while there's definitely overlap, they can't really stand in for each other. You could use Agree to Agree to convince someone that the way they're currently living their life isn't the best way they could be, but knowing that might not necessarily be enough for them to make a change. And you could use I Can Fix Them to try and get someone more invested in noticing and solving problems, but they might still disagree with you on what problems exist and how to solve them.

Did any of that help?

She rereads this response a couple of times.

It's not that she feels bad about the way she asked the first question. But rereading it next to the notebook's earnest answer makes her realize that, on some level, she was expecting its answer to be mean. To subtly say that I Can Fix Them was a power for good sweet caring girls whose pure hearts only desired for everyone around them to be happy and Agree to Agree was a power for control freaks who couldn't stand for anyone to disagree with them. It's not that she doesn't know what people sometimes think of her.

It helped a lot.

I'm sorry, this might be sudden, but can you do you want to come with me when I go? Wherever that might be?

Oh! I would like that, yes. ✨

(The sparkles dance and shimmer.)

Why do you think it might be sudden?

Well, I suppose it feels sudden to me because I only just realized that I wanted you to come along. You're very kind and insightful and I think that I'd like to be able to keep talking to you even after I get my powers.

That's very sweet of you to say!

Just so you know, though, I can't act as your Bestest Friend and I won't be able to learn any information about whatever world you're in that you don't write in me.

Snort.

That's okay. I just think you have an interesting perspective. Do people ask you to be their Best(est) Friend a lot?

Well, I don't remember exactly. But it is something that I know is important to me to make clear whenever someone asks me to join them, even if I don't particularly expect them to think I might become their Best(est) Friend.

Understandable. Would you ever want to be a Best(est) Friend, if it were possible?

She hastens to add:

Uh, to be clear, that's not me trying to cleverly ask-without-asking for you to bend the rules and be my Bestest Friend. Just curiosity.

Probably not!

For starters, there isn't really a huge difference to me between "the rules" and "what I want to do." I'm ultimately a tool created for a specific purpose, after all, and if I wanted or needed to be able to do different things, then… I would already be able to!

In the specific case of Best(est) Friend, though… I'm more similar to the Spirit than I am to almost anything else you could conceivably encounter on your adventures. And, while the Best(est) Friend can be radically different from the person it's attached to, common ground is still important. There needs to be synergy so that you and your Best(est) Friend can complement each other. I guess it's possible that there exists a personality that would perfectly complement me, but… well, under that reckoning, I think you could say that I'm already the Spirit's Best(est) Friend! Except for how I'm not really.

Um, also, just to be clear, when I said "you" in that paragraph up there I was using it generally, rather than specifically.

… Is the way that it mirrored her phrasing in that last part a joke? It's pretty funny, if so.

That's all pretty interesting.

She pages back to look at the list of powers. Looks like a whole bunch of sex-related powers are next. She starts adding them to her table in the regular notebook.

… Just based on probability, Planned Parenthood seems like a good idea! Plus, it's only one point. But it doesn't sing to her, really, and she is making an active effort to prioritize powers that are appealing to her over the ones that sound like they'll come in handy. She flips back to where she's been talking with the notebook.

A new message is waiting for her!

I think I got your hunches power idea to click:

World's Greatest Detective ☐
Cost: 3
You are uncannily, supernaturally good at noticing clues in your environment, piecing them together, and drawing correct conclusions from them. If it's even theoretically possible for you to figure something out with information that is available to you, you can do it with ease.

World's Psychicest Detective ☐
Cost: 4
(Requires World's Greatest Detective)
You can discern true information and draw correct conclusions even without any evidence being available to you. Ancient mysteries and shadow conspiracies are open books. Simply put, if something is true and you would benefit from knowing it, you can figure it out. Note: This power does not constitute true omniscience and is weighted towards information that is relevant to you.

Thanks!

Back to the regular notebook.

She finds, as she looks at the second power, that she's stuck. Part of her wants to give it only two or three points, but… she can tell that it's the part that cares about point value more than power value. Sure, these powers cost a little more than My Ears Are Burning or Anything You Can Do, but she's still got 22 points to spend even before she looks at drawbacks.

She flips back a couple of pages to reread the original conversation that prompted the notebook to think about these powers. It's a good reminder, honestly. The thing she was worried about in the first place was making a mistake and not knowing. And comparing them side by side…

World's Psychicest Detective covers her concerns with Agree to Agree perfectly. She's a little tempted to push for omniscience, but… she should probably try to rely less on powers and more on herself. She doesn't need to be handed everything she wants on a platter, even though it is fun to explore the possibility space.

Maybe that means she should forego the upgraded power? She traces a circle on the surface of her desk with the butt end of her pen.

Reframing it in her mind: the powers she takes should be the things that she wants guaranteed. The things that are still true even if she does nothing, regardless of what might happen. She flips through the options and makes a list of the ones she's checked so far:

• dressing room
• personal hygiene
• immunity system
• my ears are burning
• well endowed
• hollow leg
• inner strength
• making ends meet
• dragon fairy elf witch
• anything you can do
• closed book
• indelible
• iron will
• eidetic
• best friend
• bestest friend
• carry my heart

She looks at each option individually and asks herself if it's something that she needs to be true, no matter what. If it's something that she couldn't be her best, most actualized self without, to the point that she needs it as soon as she gets her powers and can't wait to build it herself out of other powers.

The mental enhancements definitely pass this test. She's actually not totally sure about Dressing Room, Inner Strength, and Making Ends Meet, though.

This isn't actually directly related to those two powers, but I think I might be having second thoughts about some of the powers I checked.

Which ones? You can change your mind about powers as many times as you want.

Yeah, I know. Mostly I wanted to use you as a sounding board. So basically…

• Dressing Room is appealing because it offers precise control over my presentation at all times, but maybe I'd be able to do the same thing with shapeshifting from Dragon Fairy Elf Witch or skills I pick up with Anything You Can Do.
• Inner Strength is similar; I like the idea of being stronger than I look but maybe not so much I need it guaranteed? Especially since, again, I might use Dragon Fairy Elf Witch to become part-something-that's-super-strong-and-tough.
• Making Ends Meet is definitely the one I feel iffiest about. Mostly I don't want to have to pay attention to things like food or clothes or… I dunno, housing and transportation? And clothes are covered by Dressing Room and I'm pretty sure that with Anything You Can Do I'll be learning how to take care of the rest with magic. I think mostly I'd want Making Ends Meet while I'm starting out on my journey as a vessel.

All those thoughts make sense! Which reminds me…

While¹ we've been talking, other versions of me have been working with other potential vessels and come up with… kind of a lot of new custom powers. Some of them are particularly applicable to your concerns, but I can share more than just those if you want.

¹In a sense that doesn't necessarily imply that this has happened at the literal same time that we've been talking. Sorry, I know that sounds weird.

How many is kind of a lot?

About forty powers and about twenty drawbacks.

That is a lot. Maybe just the ones that seem particularly relevant?

All right, here goes!

The pages shuffle again, less so than they did for the initial list.

These are the powers that are most applicable to what you just told me:

Pocket Dimension ☐
Cost: 1
(Requires Dressing Room)
You can reach into your pocket, purse, backpack, or other storage accessory and pull out anything that can fit through its opening, even if it obviously could not fit in the pocket and even if you've never carried that object in that pocket before. In order to summon a specific object this way, it needs to belong to you; in order to duplicate an existing object this way, you need to have held or examined it at least once; in order to invent a new object this way, you need to be familiar enough with what you want that you could tell the real thing apart from a fake made with the same materials. So jewelry you make will be real gold or silver or platinum, but if you want to pull a refrigerator out of your backpack, you need to have a reasonably good idea of how a refrigerator works.

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.

Breathe Easy ☐
Cost: 1
(Requires Personal Hygiene and Immunity System)
Eating, breathing, and other forms of environmental exchange are no longer necessary for you. You cannot be harmed by denying your body resources, or by supplying the wrong ones. You can still benefit from positive effects of things you breathe or eat.

Warmhearted ☐
Cost: 1
(Requires Breathe Easy)
You are utterly self-contained in every respect. No matter the conditions around you, you experience comfort and ease; you are warm in the cold, cool in the heat, unbothered by high winds or airless vacuum, impervious to bad smells, touched only by exactly the raindrops you would welcome.

Lightfoot ☐
Cost: 3
(Requires Hollow Leg)
You are perfectly, superhumanly graceful, with reflexes and agility to match. You can cross a field of snow without leaving a footprint, or stand on a slender branch without bending it, or jump so lightly that you soar through the air instead of falling.

Snowglobe ☐
Cost: 4
In worlds where people can have individual special powers, such as powered superheroes or personality-based magic, you find that you can pick up a power of your own even if you don't meet the local requirements. Drawbacks of these powers, such as uncontrollable power manifestations or a tendency to attract unwanted supernatural attention, will only apply if they are cool and dramatic.

Unleash the Magic ☐
Cost: 3
(Requires Anything You Can Do, Dragon Fairy Elf Witch, and Snowglobe)
Any form of magic or other special ability you encounter can be yours, regardless of prerequisites, as long as you see it in action at least once. Your various powers and attributes will never conflict with each other or come with annoying drawbacks, and will often synergize in cool and interesting ways.

Inner World ☐
Cost: 2
The world of your imagination is a real, concrete, persistent place, which you can experience in parallel with the world around you—though you might find it easier to focus on one at a time. It makes an excellent setting for lucid dreams, telepathic conversations, and notetaking. Mental enhancements affect its size, depth, and detail; mental defenses guard it against intrusion. Your control over it will grow with time and practice.

Underneath the last new power, in the more casual handwriting:

… To be clear, I don't necessarily think that all of these address your concerns or are powers that you would particularly want. But I tried to include all the ones you might like, as well as all the ones that were directly connected to the powers you mentioned.

There are also some new Powers of Friendship that you might like. Do you want to see those now?

Technically these criteria mean it could have included Five Star Daydream, but Sara hasn't expressed interest in Motherlode and it seems likely that money powers are not part of her complete breakfast.

Maybe in a bit. I want to think about these ones first. Is it okay if I think "aloud" in you?

Always! ♡

I have some thoughts on a lot of these, but first: wow, Undressing Room is REALLY weirdly specific.

I think that, in a sense, it's kind of the natural conclusion of Dressing Room! But I see what you mean. I hope that whoever asked for it is having fun!

Huh, I think I see what you mean.

It's kinda weird to me that a lot of these powers are about personal appearance on, like… the object level. Is that the kind of thing most people want?

I'm not sure! I think that a lot of the powers are about what the Spirit likes; that's why some powers come together right away and some powers take longer, or are more expensive, or have unexpected prerequisites.

Hm.

I… guess that makes sense. So you're kind of running things by the Spirit's aesthetic sense, when you make up new powers?

I can see why you'd see it that way, but it's not really what it feels like on my end. It's not like I'm directly communicating with the Spirit or asking its permission for powers. But I am a tool that the Spirit made, so I think there's definitely a sense in which it's true that my ability to come up with powers for you is shaped by the Spirit's aesthetic sense.

Ultimately, I exist to bridge the gap between the Spirit and you. It wants you to be beautiful and special and powerful in the way you want, and it isn't… picking and choosing what it wants to allow you to have. It just has a different way of thinking about the world.

Yeah.

Sorry. I think I kind of assumed the thing about asking permission. I really don't want to need permission.

I think a lot of vessels probably feel the same way! I'm not totally sure, but it would make sense, since the Spirit cares a lot about helping people be powerful in their own way and on their own terms.

That's kind of related to the things I was thinking about some of the powers…

She pauses, but the notebook doesn't say anything in response. She supposes that if it were to say anything here, it'd mostly be a vaguely affirming social noise, and she already knows it's paying attention.

For instance, it just kind of feels better to use Eidetic to learn languages, even though Omniglot would be more comprehensive. But I don't think I'd give up Eidetic at all, even if I was able to do the same thing with magic I picked up later, because it being metanarratively guaranteed feels important.

That makes sense! I'm glad I was able to come up with something that resonated with you that strongly.

I'm glad too!

She flips back to look at the new powers again. She can probably substitute Breathe Easy for a lot of the early utility of Making Ends Meet… she goes ahead and checks the former.

I think I'd like to uncheck Making Ends Meet, for now.

The notebook does this.

Thanks.

Question about Inner World: It's not a physical place, is it?

Well, sort of? It can definitely become physical with the investment of things like time, magic, and mental energy, but it starts out more like a manifestation of your mind that's shaped like a place.

Like a mind palace?

Yes, exactly! Except you don't need to expend any mental effort to maintain your Inner World. You can, if you want to alter its layout, but by default the Inner World takes a form that makes sense to the person whose mind it is.

Cool, that makes sense.

Would it be possible to have a power that's like a combination of Pocket Dimension and Inner World? Specifically what I want is some sort of personalized… let's call it a realm… that I can physically travel to, not just mentally.

If she were naming these powers, then the custom power would be called Pocket Dimension and Pocket Dimension would be called Hammerspace. But she can concede that Pocket Dimension fits the theme of Dressing Room better than Hammerspace.

It can have the same properties as the Inner World; I like those a lot aesthetically. Also aesthetic would be if it grew with me? And… maybe if I could choose where I would go in the outside world when I exited it.

This, naturally, would have the advantage of letting her travel between worlds with ease.

I think that's enough to work with!

Thanks! :)

Let's see, where was I… oh, right, thinking about Dressing Room and Inner Strength. Pocket Dimension is good (and might be a prerequisite for that power you're cooking up), so I'll probably keep Dressing Room… really not sure about Inner Strength. I like Lightfoot more on an aesthetic level, I think, so I might drop Inner Strength for that, but I'm not completely sure if I really need either.

A thought I just had is… it makes sense that using magic to copy one of the Spirit's powers would be less reliable than taking it as a power. Magic suppression is probably a thing, as well as powers that only work in certain worlds. But would the same apply to skills I learned not with magic?

When Sara thanks the notebook, it draws a heart in response.

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on how Inner Strength and/or Lightfoot would fit into your life!

Quick note: if you take Unleash the Magic, your magic powers will work everywhere, including when you're in a circumstance where normally your magic would be suppressed or otherwise not work. But your question about skills learned on your own is still good. I think an advantage that the powers have is that they just work, no matter what. Which sounds kind of circular, but what I mean is that they can respond in advance to things that you wouldn't be able to anticipate on your own, or work even when there's every reason for them not to work.

I think it's also important to mention that the Spirit likes when its vessels learn to do things on their own, if that's the sort of thing they'd want to do, and your powers will encourage that if that's how you steer them.

I think I get what you mean about the powers just working. Like, if someone took Lightfoot but not Immunity System or any of the mental defense powers, they'd still be Light on their Feet if they got drugged with something that would normally make them clumsy?

Yes, unless they would consider it to be cool or narratively appropriate to be impaired in that way by those drugs.

That's a good thing to keep in mind.

So the thing about Lightfoot and Inner Strength… I definitely think that part of being powerful, in my mind, is being graceful and agile and stronger than I look. And, now that I think of it, I think I'd probably like to be a little taller, but not necessarily strikingly so. (Is it possible to get that without taking Size Difference? It's possible that my size preferences will change, but I don't think it's likely to be so urgent that I can't wait to learn shapeshifting magic or discover appropriate heritage with Dragon Fairy Elf Witch.) But I'm also not sure that I want those abilities to be that… extreme? Again, it's possible that I'll get in a situation where someone's tracking me through a snowy landscape and the abilities offered by Lightfoot would come in handy. But I guess it kind of feels like… overkill, or something, and not like a central part of my power fantasy.

Since that's basically what this is: an opportunity to turn her power fantasies into power realities.

I think the central part of my power fantasy is less "flying brick" and more… "devastatingly clever enchantress."

She has to take a moment to bury her face in her hands because that was actually really embarrassing to write out. Gah.

Fortunately(?), the notebook is oblivious to her embarrassment.

Oh, that sounds really fun! And I think it makes me understand some of what you're going for. Would it be off base to guess that making yourself stronger or more graceful with magic is more appealing than taking those abilities as powers because it's more fitting for an enchantress?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Come on, Sara, you're a big girl.

No, I think you're right. Like… obviously life isn't literally like a roleplaying game where being strong in one attribute directly trades off against another,

"…except for the part where that's literally what I'm doing here,"

but it still feels more narratively fitting for the enchantress to start out with normal strength and grace, or even as a little weak and clumsy. Except for the part where I don't really want to make myself weak or clumsy.

I think I understand! That kind of thought process definitely lines up with the way the Spirit works.

Also, I don't necessarily think that you need this particular reminder, but while we're on this topic, I feel that it's important to say that… even if something doesn't seem to fit the narrative of the devastatingly clever enchantress, if it appeals to you then you should take it! It's better for you to combine narratives that you like to maximize self-indulgence than to prioritize adherence to a single narrative over what you would actually enjoy.

Oh, don't worry. I'm definitely focusing on what things I want to have as part of my life :)

I think… I'm going to add Lightfoot and keep Inner Strength for now, because it'll be easier to drop them if I need the points (or decide I don't actually like them that much) than to try to make room for them when I don't have enough points later.

She checks Lightfoot and puts a star next to it and Inner Strength.

Oh, and if you want to shuffle the newer stuff into the list to make it tidier, you can do that. After I look at Snowglobe and Unleash the Magic, I think.

Okay! Did you have specific thoughts about those two powers that you wanted to share?

Yeah.

So for starters, part of me looks at those and goes "yes, give me more magic, MORE." And I'm pretty sure that, you know, you and the Spirit agree with that part. :P

But on the other hand, I'm not sure I totally understand what Unleash the Magic… does? At least, that its prerequisites don't already do, besides the thing you said earlier about immunity to antimagic or being in the wrong universe. So maybe it's mostly redundant and I shouldn't take it, maybe it isn't. But I definitely shouldn't take it if I don't fully understand it.

We do agree with that part, but we also think that you get to choose how you make decisions about powers. ♡

In general, powers love to reinforce and synergize with each other. This is especially true when the powers are thematically linked in some way: mental enhancements, for instance, or the combat powers, or the powers that affect your appearance.

Unleash the Magic specifically makes sure that its prerequisites don't leave any gaps in your ability to learn or use magic. So for example… if you found a kind of magic that would normally depend on aspects of your personal history that you don't have the power to change, like being born at a certain time or having had specific events happen to you at a specific age, Anything You Can Do, Dragon Fairy Elf Witch, and Snowglobe might or might not let you learn it, but Unleash the Magic definitely would.

Does that help?

Yeah, I think so.

…I had a funny thought just now that I'm going to write down because I think it's funny but before I do I want to be clear that I'm joking and not asking for a power.

That being said, a power that edits or lets you edit aspects of your personal history like time and date of birth seems pretty solidly within the scope of the other powers. Like, Dragon Fairy Elf Witch lets you edit your species without messing things up for your actual family tree; I'm sure that if someone wanted a power that was like "at all times, you have exactly the right birthday" or whatever that'd be small potatoes.

Well, now I'm mildly tempted to come up with that power anyway. Later, though.

Unrelatedly, I think I've got a couple working ideas for powers about people who work for you! I can show you now, if you want.

Hmm.

She does want, she thinks, but she's also pretty sure she wants to take Snowglobe and Unleash the Magic, which will put her at 65/70. And she's only about two-thirds of the way into the Power of Friendship section.

Well, there are a couple things she can do about that.

Yeah, go ahead.

Also, is it possible to make a custom drawback, or are those different from powers somehow?

Here are the two ideas I've got so far:

Baby Monitor ☐
Cost: 1
If you love someone or consider their welfare to be your responsibility, you can always take a moment to wonder about them and get an accurate sense of how they're doing and if they need help.

They Even Have Dental ☐
Cost: 2
(Requires Baby Monitor)
If someone is in your employ, service, debt, or otherwise has a relationship to you where you can give them directions or orders and expect those to be reliably followed, you're always able to provide for their welfare. This includes, but is not limited to, fulfilling basic needs such as food and shelter, paying or otherwise compensating them fairly, and in general ensuring that their working conditions are agreeable to them. By default, they are protected from negative coincidences, but not from active enemy action. The degree of your ability to protect and provide for them scales with investment of effort on your part and how keenly you would feel it if something bad happened to them.

Custom drawbacks are definitely doable. Do you want to think of some right now?

Also…

The writing slows down a touch again.

I notice that you seem to have a bit of a focus on powers that let you know what other people are doing and that make it easier for you to manage them. This can constitute a lot of responsibility and mental overhead, even with the mental boosts you asked for, so I wanted to check in with you about whether this is something that you want for its own sake or as a way to accomplish something else, like keeping yourself safe or preventing other people from having power over you. If it's the first thing, I'm happy that these powers are helping you get it! And if it's the second thing, I'd love to work with you on ways to accomplish that more directly.

Sara flushes in angry embarrassment and snaps the book shut. She was just starting to open up to it, too! And then it hit her with—

She peeks at the offending page again. That… looks like it's actually genuine concern and support that she once again read as backhanded for basically no reason. Oops.

She shuts the notebook, not sure if she trusts herself to not say something dumb she doesn't mean. Maybe she should take a breather?

She checks the time. It's kind of late and she hasn't eaten dinner yet. She should probably. Do that. And maybe go to bed. And also think about figuring out a way to squeeze Time Enough For Love into her powers list.

Sorry for vanishing. I needed to sleep and eat. I did think about what you said, though.

So the thing is… I kind of just want power in general. Because when I look at the world, I see so much inefficiency and pointless waste and brokenness. And it offends me. I don't think that as I am right now I can really make a difference, which also kinda offends me, but these powers would change that.

That's not the main thing, though. But the main thing is… hard.

I think there might be a little bit of wanting to keep myself safe from other people having power over me in there, but it's kind of hard to extract from me just liking control for itself. Because, like—to me part of wanting control is seeing that it sucks when other people have it, or when nobody has it. And so powers that keep me safe from other people's control only solve part of the problem. So… I guess I'm pretty sure that I do want to be in charge of people. And so I'm trying to make sure that I have powers that make me good at it.

It's really all right! Pauses between statements don't literally feel the same to me regardless of how much time passed for you, but it doesn't make me upset or bored or anything if you take a long time on your end to gather your thoughts or take care of tasks like eating or sleeping.

Thanks for explaining your reasoning for me, by the way. I think that wanting power in general and being offered these powers are a good match! I'm glad that having them will make your life better. And… it's okay if you don't completely understand everything about your mind and motivations. I'm not interested in trying to suss out the purity of your desires, just make sure that the powers you pick fit you and feel good to have, instead of causing problems that we could have prevented by understanding each other better.

That makes sense.

She could apologize for almost biting its head off, or wanting to, but… she doesn't actually want to.

She flips back to get her bearings again. She was in the middle of the Powers of Friendship… oooh. She taps the end of her pen thoughtfully next to the box for Like a Mirror.

Just how alternate are these versions of me? Is it like an alternate timelines thing like in Star Trek, or more like the Spider-Verse movies?

I don't think I know about either of those!

Oh, right. Well, in Star Trek there's like this alternate universe that has mostly the same guys as the main guys, but they're evil instead. And in the Spider-Verse movies there are a bunch of different versions of this superhero called Spider-Man, but they're not all necessarily the *same guy*. Like you've got Miles Morales, but also a bunch of guys who are Peter Parker, and Gwen Stacy who's Spider-Woman instead. Not that these names would really mean anything to you, I suppose.

I think I understand what you mean anyway! I think Like a Mirror isn't completely like either of those examples, but it's more like Star Trek than the Spider-Verse movies. The Spider-Verse thing sounds more like the drawback There's Another One to me, if the different superheroes are different people with different personalities.

I can try to explain more or differently, if you want.

I'd appreciate that.

Okay!

So there are a lot of things that "alternate version of you" can mean. Ultimately, I'd say an alternate version of you is a different person who is also you. Which is kind of circular, right? But there are a lot of ways for people to be alternate versions of each other. Usually they'll have the same kind of personality, but sometimes personality is shaped by things that happened to you. Sometimes, this means that alternate selves will tend to have the same kinds of things happen to them, shaping them in the same ways. And sometimes this means that someone might superficially have a pretty different personality from an alternate self who had very different things happen to them!

Alternate selves can come from pretty different types of world and in different kinds of person. There might be a you from a version of Earth where humans tend to have magic powers, or a you from a version of Earth where dragons are commonplace, or a you that's not from Earth at all!

That sounds pretty cool.

She traces figure eights with the tip of her pen. The tricky thing about this power is the stipulation that the other Saras (if they're even named that) will get along with her… and the Evil Twin drawback that undoes that stipulation. Because now she has to think about how she'd feel to be on the other end of a power when she weighs whether she wants to take it.

The friendliest version of the guarantee obviously picks out the Saras who are the best personality matches for each other. And maybe she should just avoid taking the drawback that undoes the personality matching, but… she doesn't like the idea of having to avoid any of her alternate selves like that. Especially since the Spirit will be making her almost certainly the most powerful one.

This brings her back around to thinking how she'd feel if a version of her armed with My Ears Are Burning, World's Psychicest Detective, and Agree to Agree who had different goals or priorities showed up. Does she trust that it's sufficiently fundamental to her being that she'd cut a version of herself more slack than someone who wasn't her enough to inflict that on unknown alts?

Apparently she does, because she checks the box. And Agree to Agree, now that she realizes she hasn't actually checked it yet.