[META] Writing Guide

The main idea of the power is changing someone’s first response to certain stimuli. Generally what I was thinking of when making this is extending and adding “branches” to neural pathways.

Disclaimer: I’m a computer science student, so I don’t know shit about psychology. If when you’re writing you think some of the rules are too rigid for how human minds work, then keep to the general idea of them.

Limits

This power isn’t total control over whoever you meet. To “target” (for lack of a better word) someone’s reactions to something you need to know what their current first response would be to a similar situation, with a better knowledge of how they think making it easier to change them to a greater level - using this power on someone you’ve known your whole life is easier than on a complete stranger.

This is also more effective on some people just based on their personality. Some people will far more readily go with their first instinct, while others will stop and think about the situation before doing anything.

The other limitation of this power is how reinforced the target’s reactions are; responses to a stimulus someone regularly sees are more resistant than completely new situations.

Possible ideas

This list is by no means exhaustive. The whole idea behind places like CHYOA is people doing things with another person’s idea that the original author would never have thought of.

A person’s reactions include more than just what they do. You could, with enough skill, push memories, or even plain emotions. With some people, you might be able to make a perfectly convincing fake memory.

Another way you could use it is having memories and emotions in a sequence - you remind them of someone else, who always makes them get horny as an example. This might be easier to do, as directly making them get horny would be difficult if you’ve never fucked them.