I wouldn't exactly have put it like that but I think I see what you mean.

The Spirit feels pretty similarly to you about I Can Fix/Help Them, for what it's worth, and I Can Fix Them usually ends up wielded in a very Helpful sort of way unless the Spirit's vessel actively wants to be more aggressive with it or unless the person being Fixed genuinely wouldn't agree to be Helped. But it still makes sense to take Help over Fix when that's exactly what you want.

Yeah.

True Love's Kiss and Eternal Love are just obvious. Though actually, I should ask, does Eternal Love make it, say, more likely for love interests I have broken up with to come back and harass me some more later? Not that I'm necessarily opposed to that, but I want to know what I'm getting into.

In a sense it does, yes...

If you break up with them in a way where you truly don't want to see them again, then Eternal Love won't give them any extra help with getting back to you. But to the extent that you're still interested in them and care about them and want to be around them, and assuming they don't choose to accept your decision and walk away of their own will, then yes, Eternal Love will be operative.

I am going to discover heights of getting stalked not previously known to man.

I think I'm fine with this.

(The notebook draws hearts on those sentences.)

Okay, so The Rescuer.

...do you see what I mean when I say that The Rescuer seems like a power that will... make your whole life about itself? And it's not that I definitely don't want that, or anything. It's just that... I'm not sure? And I'm not sure I want it enough to spend all those points to get it?

Is that terribly selfish of me?

Yes, there's a sense in which that's selfish of you. But... I think I want everyone to have the chance to be selfish in that way. To live their own life in a way that's focused around what they want, and not around what other people need from them, even if they could choose to be less of what they want and more of what other people need.

If you're not sure you want your life to be about The Rescuer, then holding off on The Rescuer sounds like a good decision to me. Other people will take that power, people whose best life is about the things The Rescuer gives them. You might even meet some of them, since you took There's Another One!

You know, that actually makes me feel a whole lot better. Okay.

We've discussed Providential Parenthood. I do very much see it as a defense for my future children against being born in bad situations, not a defense for myself against unwanted children.

Laugh Together seems like clearly the best of its set. I want to be immersed in my experiences, especially when they're those ones. I could take or leave protection from elbows.
I liked Bop It a lot at first but I keep downgrading it because it just doesn't seem that important. It Gets Better is going to make me immortal. I will have time to get good at sex.
The Princess and the Dragon, on the other hand, seems critically necessary for any sort of interdimensional love life. Otherwise what would I do if I got hit on by a dark eldritch god with tentacles made of dreams whose visage drives mortal minds to madness? Turn them down??? Terrible.

Tiny hearts! So many tiny hearts all over that last sentence!

Opening Up is the best of that little quartet, I love it. GGG leaves me cold, Before Your Eyes makes me uncomfortable, and Reaching Out seems even worse than The Rescuer on the "making your entire life about having this power" score. But I'd love to be a safe place for my love interests to experiment.

I wasn't that into Fated Lovers at first, I think partly for Gloryseeker reasons insofar as Gloryseeker is metonymy for powers I would rather replace by getting good at things, but of course with Love Is A Battlefield in play it's crucial to my aesthetic that people be able to Love Is A Battlefield me without me having any idea they're a candidate or potentially even that they exist.
Fated Friends is a no, though, it costs more and I like it less and it doesn't even let people sexually harass me from the shadows.

...okay, I'm being too flippant about this, actually.

Love Is A Battlefield is scary. Fated Lovers makes it much scarier. But it's a really good, really important kind of scariness. It's everything I want out of this life I'm building for myself. I don't want you to think I'm not scared, though. I definitely absolutely am scared and I shouldn't spend so much time making light of that that it starts looking like I'm not.

I think I see what you mean.

I'm glad you feel comfortable sharing those feelings with me, and glad you're getting the chance to live the life you want even though it's scary.

I'm glad too. ♡

Sorry About That through Tragic Backstory are emphatically not for me and actually kind of terrifying, not in the good way, if I think about them too hard. Yikes, please let me never be so blindly loved that I don't get the chance to stop hurting people I care about because they're too quick to tell me it's fine.

Sense of Style and Bonus Style Points are just kinda not for me.

Like a Mirror seems cool but I just don't know if it's worth really spending points on.
Self-Reflection also seemed kind of that way, especially at the price point, except then I saw Chaser Six When (where the heck did that word salad name come from?) and immediately needed it. I like it even better now that I won't have to rely on my self-control to stop me from spamming copies of myself until they blot out the sun.

Severance isn't my style.

Popular is pretty neat, but I think I like it for all the same reasons I like Five Star Daydream and I already have Five Star Daydream. I guess I should double-check, though, will it hold up as worth those points even with Five Star Daydream already there giving me cool stuff to do that people will probably hear about as I steamroll their economy?

...actually, come to think of it, I should probably also explicitly check: how badly am I going to steamroll all those economies?

Popular can do lots of things that Five Star Daydream won't do by itself! Think of it like... Five Star Daydream is much more redundant with Famous. It gives you cool stuff to do that, yes, probably puts you in the public eye quite a bit, but it's not really tailored to you specifically except in that it picks the cool stuff you get to do based partly on what you personally enjoy and think is neat. Popular is more targeted, more focused. It will make sure people hear about the specific things about you that they're interested in, and make sure the people hearing about those things are the kind of people you personally want to be popular with.

As for the economies... you'll definitely be disruptive, no two ways about it! But that metanarrative guarantee is pretty serious about making sure you don't accidentally wreak terrible havoc wherever you go. If you want all the civilizations you meet to be clearly better off for having met you, then they will be.

I would absolutely love to be a boon to any civilization I meet.

Okay. Famous is meh. Undiplomatic Immunity... I mean, I won't deny that it has some appeal, but I can't imagine spending six whole points on it. I am just not that into crime.

The Friends In Places powers are tempting on some levels, off-putting on others. If they cost two each I think I'd be all over them even with my mixed feelings. At nine points total, though... man, that's a lot, you know?

The thing is, I'm used to feeling like being adept at smoothly navigating social situations is more of a burden than a blessing. But I'm used to that from the perspective of having been good at it all my life. I'm a little nervous that it might turn out that actually, when I'm in an alien world that works on totally different rules from any of the sets I'm used to, being adept at smoothly navigating social situations is a vital survival skill that I will sorely miss. But oof, those nine points!

I very nearly have room for them, though, and... I do think I'd miss them if I didn't have them. So.

I really hope you come through on those extra drawbacks I've been asking for. ♡

I'm working on them, I promise! ♡

I don't get Vending Machine. I can kind of see how it could be neat under some circumstances but it's twelve points and no.

So then there's drawbacks!

...Decorative... I kind of get the sense that Decorative could be a trap. I see the ways it could be a trap, for someone who just thinks "pay me a point to be pretty all the time? Yes please!" and doesn't really think it through. But I think it's... the kind of trap I want to be caught in, when I think about it.

Beauty Is A Curse just seems like mind-controlling people to be obnoxious to me all the time for no reason. Lose-lose.

Plain Jane sounds horrible.

Style of Sisyphus sounds kind of nice? I mean, obviously I don't love the eternal striving aspect, but... I do kind of love the eternal striving aspect, from a certain angle? It means that no matter how long I live, I will always keep being presented with more beautiful wonderful things that I love looking at, and challenged to incorporate them into my personal style. I think I can get behind that.

There's Another One provides me with the opportunity to potentially meet sketchy love interests who also have the Spirit's power at their backs. This just seems great. Terrifying, obviously, but great. Also if they aren't sketchy love interests they're pretty likely to be cool people I would enjoy knowing. Or potentially just non-love-interest sketchy people I might be able to Help-fully befriend.

Incomplete and Nullified are straightforwardly good.

Great Responsibility is a trap I don't want to be caught in.

Funhouse is just the obvious thing to take alongside Like a Mirror. But I'm probably not going to take Like a Mirror.

Very Distinctive is exciting because it made it essentially free to take A Hundred Ships, given how enthusiastic I already was about Dressing Room and Hollow Leg. I don't think there's any sense in which I'd benefit from being able to disguise myself as someone I'm not. I mean, I can come up with contrived scenarios where it'd be useful? But I'm okay with just taking that option away from myself.

Flashy, on the other hand, seems like it could potentially be crippling in the wrong circumstances.

Secret Identity was a no until you provided it with upgrades that make it possible to bring my fantastical cosmic power home if the narrative sees fit to allow it, and I'm willing to trust the narrative about that.

Selective Memory...

I think, in a way, Selective Memory changed my outlook on this whole process?

It was when you said that if I left it unspecified what powers I wanted to forget, then, essentially, they'd be chosen for me. I guess I started... thinking about whether I might want that. And it turned out that I do kind of want that. It turned out that I want... this whole thing that I'm doing, this thing where I'm throwing myself into the hands of the narrative/the Spirit/whatever combination of those makes sense to be thinking about. The Crazy Train and all its satellites. That.

Awwwww!

I'm really glad you get to have the things you want. ♡

The Veil, on the other hand, is too much for me, it has way less of the "putting myself in the hands of a powerful and hopefully benevolent force" nature and is more like just making my life difficult and confusing for what is really not all that many extra points.

...actually, though, I should ask... how do I put this...

With the combination of It Gets Better and Live The Role, is The Veil just kind of a little bit free points now? Because Live The Role says I'll someday recover anything I've lost, if I have It Gets Better, and I'm definitely not against making my life temporarily difficult and confusing if I know I'll eventually get everything back...

...you know, that's a good point.

I think... I think The Veil will make it harder to get back your memories of the time you've spent with me and of exactly what your powers are and how you decided on them. But I also think that Live The Role will let you get glimpses into what The Veil would ordinarily deny you, when it's narratively appropriate, and It Gets Better with the help of Live The Role will let you eventually recover all the memories you really want to keep, although it might take a lot longer that way than it would if you hadn't taken The Veil. So, I guess it depends on how much you value specifically remembering that you had this conversation with me?

I think I value specifically remembering that I had this conversation with you quite a bit! ♡

Dramatic Damsel and the upgrades you gave me for it are all just fantastic. In a terrifying way. Terrifying in a fantastic way. You know what I mean.

Green With Envy through Jilted Lovers are terrible. I may kind of a little bit want to be stalked, but not like that.

The Crazy Train is really the perfect embodiment of the "trust in the Spirit" thing I've got going on and I'm really happy with it. Same with the upgrades.

They'll Know is just a lot of points in exchange for something I won't really miss. Especially now that, correct me if I'm wrong, I suspect Live The Role/Secret Identity will conceal my powers from other people when I'm blocked from using them anyway? Like, if I effectively don't have the power, it doesn't get broadcast?

Yes, that's right! There are some edge cases where They'll Know might allow someone to suspect more about a power subtly working in the background than they could have otherwise, but for the most part, blocked powers and powers that have gone 'underground' so to speak (like safety powers that are protecting you as subtly as they can) don't get broadcast by They'll Know.

Excellent. My terrible life choices are really working out for me.

And now Realism. Realism is a trap, right? A horrible awful trap that tempts you with 20 entire points and then makes everything worse forever?

I wouldn't call it a trap, exactly... it's more like a double-edged sword.

To some people, it matters a lot that their powers work on... the same kind of level as the reality around them? It's like with you and Undressing Room. Some people don't want to take the step of disconnecting from mundane causality by allowing the Spirit to empower them in ways that mundane causality is powerless to affect. To those people, having everything run on particles feels good and safe, and having the protection of the metanarrative at their backs feels alien and frightening. Do you see what I mean?

...but, yes, for people who don't have that kind of problem or some other reason to specifically want Realism, I think Realism is mostly a regrettable choice, and I try to tell them so before they put themselves in a position to regret it.