John, a university science major

"This is incredible," was all you could think as you took in the bared boobs of all the baristas in the cafe. Looking back down at the page, you could clearly see what you had written there, and the results around. There seemed to be far fewer female patrons than you remembered, and those who were here seemed to just be coming in, getting drinks to go, and leaving, while male patrons seemed to be drinking in. As you looked around you did see quite a lot of leering going on, so no one seemed to be noticing you gaping.

Looking through the front window, you saw a large number of people walking by. Some of the men were clearly looking in the window and gawking, but not hanging around, as though it was normal to just window shop the topless baristas. Across the street was another coffee shop, and looking in the window, you saw that the women there were also topless. 'Why did that happen?', you thought.

'Cafe - Old Rule: The dress code requires female employees to be topless at all times'... You almost facepalmed. 'Cafe', not 'Enrico's Coffee Bean' or 'This Cafe'. The rulebook took broadest meaning of what you wrote, ignoring the implication you had intended while writing. That could be dangerous.

'Think like a scientist,' you thought. 'First, see how it works.' Placing your pencil over the text, while looking up, you crossed out the rule you wrote. As you did so, all the women's shirts faded back in again, and, you noticed, the makeup of the sitting patrons also changed, with a large number of men being replaced by women. Looking down, you saw the line crossed out. 'Ok, that confirms it's reversible. What about reversing the reversal...', you thought. Flipping the pencil over, you began to erase the strike-through, but as soon as you started it erased itself fully, leaving the text as you originally wrote it. Looking back up, you saw that toplessness had been restored to most of the females you could see. 'Ok, can I change the target?', you thought, as you wrote 'Enrico's Coffee Bean' above the word 'cafe' in preparation to erase it. Before you could erase cafe, however, it erased itself, and the name of the shop slotted into the spot, moving the other text over to make space. Looking across the street, you saw that everyone over there was clothed normally, though everyone in this shop was still topless. The patronage also seemed more, for lack of a better word sleazy and the window was now tinted, which you supposed made sense if this was now an "adult" coffee shop compared to others. Next, you tried erasing the rule itself, and just like before once you began it just erased itself, leaving a clean page; not even any residual indentation of the paper remained, and the shop was again returned to normal.

'Alright, it looks like as long as I am careful and don't accidentally kill myself in some way I can take anything I want back. But careful phrasing is important!' You had all kinds of ideas, but the more you thought, the more there was a problem. Old rules changed it so it had always been that way and changed reality to match, while new rule changed it so it had just become a rule, but didn't change reality. Old rule could be dangerous, after all what if your changes changed the past so humans didn't exist anymore or you had never been born? But if you wanted a change that needed a reality alteration, you couldn't make it change now, rather than earlier. One of your first thoughts for an old rule had been to help out your friend Ally, who had been born with an atrophied arm, but "humans do not suffer from any kinds of birth defects" as an old rule could have major implication on history, while as a new rule it wouldn't do anything since there was no reality alteration. And how would "birth defects" be taken? After all, many geniuses were autistic; would science and technology regress as they all became normal people?

'If only there was a rule that started when you wanted it too and changed reality, without having to go back through all history,' you thought. You sat there, pondering and drinking your coffee for a while, until it hit you. 'I can change the rules for anything! What about the rules for this book?'

Pulling out a different notebook, you began sketching out possible rules to write, and after an hour (and ordering another coffee because the owner had begun to give you the stink eye after a bit), you had something that looked good. Putting pencil to the rulebook, you began to write.

'This rulebook - Old Rule: When writing any rules, the intention of the writer shall be incorporated into the effect, with what has been written changing as needed after being written but before taking effect to properly reflect the intent of the writer at the time of writing,' you wrote. The words seemed to vibrate for a second and then moved over to the note containing the rules, slotting in under the paragraph describing how they worked. You noticed that the phrasing had slightly altered as well, which you assumed meant it was covering up for something you had missed.

As an addition, you put in the second thing you had come up with. You put in a ^ and the words 'Normal Rule' after 'old rule' in the rules. Nothing happened, but maybe that was because you weren't finished, so you moved to after the description of old rules and kept inserting, writing carefully due to the tiny space. 'Normal Rules are also accommodated by reality, but a time can be specified for when the change occurred or occurs and the scope can be specified precisely if such is written, even if this leaves incongruities in reality. If no time is specified, it happens when you've finished writing them down.' As you finished, the text again rearranged and changed itself, slotting in seamlessly so that there were now 3 rules and a clause making sure that what you wrote would come out as you wanted.

'There, now it should be safe to use. If nothing else, I don't think I will ever want to edit myself out of existence, so I should be protected and able to reverse things later.'