Damage Limitation

David Chestnut:
Submissiveness
Intelligence
Agreeableness
Class

Dung Phan:
Style
BM
Submissiveness
Language

Any form of submissiveness and agreeableness was completely out of the question. She'd come dangerously close to being unfaithful already and wouldn't risk stepping over that holy line.

Intelligence was also a rather though pill to swallow, but her options left no other choice. Class was a nasty one as well, but not nearly as dangerous as the other three.

As for her grandmother, submissiveness had already been ruled out, and so it had been a question of whether she'd risk it on BM or not. Ultimately she decided against it, figuring language was and style were less of a hindrance. If by any chance language left her worse off than expected she could come around and consider BM at a later stage, given they were presented simultaneously.

Minh awoke the following day well rested. It was as though she'd never sat up late with the app at all. Perhaps in this version of reality she hadn't? Everything seemed to be just about the same around her. The room was the same, her husband was lying next to her, he also on first glance appeared to remain unchanged. Her mind didn't feel sluggish either. Maybe she'd not been affected after all, perhaps there was a lower limit to how far down she could go. Could it be that the effects didn't stack?

It wasn't like that, it wasn't like that at all. A mind can only take so much strain before it breaks. The forces at play here knew that all too well. Continuous alterations to the mind isn't a sustainable. The solution was to overwrite already existing elements, so when Minh felt as sharp as ever that was partly true. There never existed a reality where Minh had an IQ that would qualify her for Mensa. Her previous estimates were pretty accurate. The app had reduced her IQ from 137 to 115. The final change had changed that 115 down to a "measly" 95. Her new current IQ still put her only slightly bellow the 98 which was average for an American. As for Vietnamese-Americans, that statistic isn't easily available, even for an omniscient ****.

In addition to completely losing any memories of ever having an IQ of over 115, Minh also had no recollection of attaining her promotion without sucking up to Harry. As a matter of fact, she quite liked Harry now. He was a good man who'd finally given her what she deserved, so what if she had to do a little extra to get there?

The usually proper lady had also been inflicted by her second "class" change, meaning she now leaned much more towards her father, who was notorious for not being the cleanest or best behaved person in public. Thankfully he'd been balanced out by his wife, who was perhaps too proper. Unfortunately for Minh, this hadn't been taken into account when altering her mind. Unless her husband suddenly became obsessed with appearing high class, she'd have no counterweight and would soon find herself acting a little ..less refined.

"Good morning" She heard her husband groggily mutter as he lifted himself to a sitting position in bed.

"Good morning stud" Had she really just said that? The only change she had any hope of noticing and it was the language one. She'd figured it would be a change related to her English and Vietnamese heritage and language, not her speech? Little did she know it was both, but that remained to be discovered. In the meantime she tried to focus on her sentences, wondering exactly how far it really stretched.

"I'd love to stay in bed a little longer, but I've gotta go to fucking work on time today, there's this stupid meeting and.." she trailed off, caught off guard by her use of profanities. Her mother was very strict growing up, making sure that neither Minh nor her dad used any bad language. This habit of not cursing had stuck for her whole life, now she'd used the F bomb without hesitation. She also said meeting were stupid, which sounded a little childish to her. Fortunately this was all rather mundane. People swore all the time, if anything, this could be a good thing! Now she'd at least sound somewhat normal and not like a stuck up prude when talking to colleagues and friends. What a bright note to start the day on.