Look at all my friends & Parley

Alright, I’ve made my choices.

For Rachel, I’m going to go with “Look at all my friends”. Sure, it would be a lot of fun to see her become an adult celebrity, filming herself in public with little care as to whoever may see her, but I like the poetic irony of picking the other option.

Just think about it. Tatiana, one of the alphas of the school, was brought to her knees, and will slowly find herself falling down the food chain, until she’s left as little more than everyone’s laughing stock, getting off on her own humiliation and utterly unable to notice her own fall from grace. And in the meantime, Rachel, the one she was keeping under her boot, the poor girl who couldn’t fight back, who would simply suffer in silence, will rise meteorically to the top.

Riches to rags, rags to riches. A story for the ages.

And on a more practical level, after thinking about it, I’ve realised that by picking this option, I could essentially turn her into my personal spy. All I have to do is ask her to befriend someone. They’ll be drawn to trust her, they’ll tell her their secrets, and she’ll come and tattle to me immediately. It’ll take some smart moves to properly use to its full potential, and convincing her to befriend someone might cost a modest sum of BS, but it’s definitely possible.

The money sharing perk from the other option would probably be more useful in the short term, but as always, I want to play the long game here. And besides, if money’s what I’m looking for, basically anyone in the school --- except for the teachers and lower ranking staff --- could be a good source of it.

I select the Look at all my friends option and the new belief is displayed:

• It’s important to try and make as many friends as possible. The user is the reason she is able to make friends, and therefore she should repay him by letting him know anything he wants about her friends.

Anything I want, huh?

Once again, the app is being quite generous in the way it defines certain things. It doesn’t always happen, but it’s certainly a nice surprise when it does. This is going to make her into an even better spy than I thought. I think I made the right decision with this Path.

Underneath the belief, a resistance also showed up:

• Target will resist the idea that she should become an internet celebrity.

Yeah, that’s not going to be a big problem, let’s just move on to the Perk.

I’ve thought about this one for a long time. Both could be very good in different circumstances. But ultimately, the safety I’m afforded by Parley simply makes it too good to pass on.

Just think about it, what if I fail an argument with someone and they somehow manage to realise that something’s wrong. It happened with Jenny, but luckily I’d made her unable to disagree with the idea. It nearly happened again with Rachel today, and she would’ve definitely turned against me if it did. If I keep coming this close to disaster, eventually, my luck will run out. But with Parley, I can still salvage the situation. Demand a debate, use an energy potion if necessary, and neutralise the threat.

Safety before commodity.

I’ll probably regret not picking Spreading agent a few times, but I hope I eventually come to use Parley enough times to justify it.

Now... Let’s go back to the store.

Upgrading a Path is definitely an interesting option to have, and I’ll probably use it eventually, but as things stand, there isn’t really any single one that catches my eye as being worth the cost. Maybe later, but we’ll see.

Updating the environment would be incredibly useful, but as I’ve said, I want to wait until I’ve set up a few more group beliefs before I use it. And besides, I don’t have enough cash anyways. I could decide to save up for now, but by the time I do put all those group beliefs into place, I’ll most likely have earned more than enough cash anyways, so I might as well buy something now.

And as to the energy potion, well, having one definitely sounds like a good idea, but I don’t see any reason why I’d want more than that.

So that leaves us with the body editor.

And I think our target for it is quite obvious.

After selecting the body editor, the app asks for my confirmation (good to know I won’t accidentally spend all my cash on a misclick), before greeting me with a target selection menu. I pick Rachel and I’m met by four options:

1. Hourglass figure. The fat tissue in the target’s body will be shifted from her belly and her face to her breasts, buttocks and thighs, leading to a curvy, hourglass shaped body.
2. Plus size. Target will mostly keep her current chubby figure, but her general appearance will be tweaked to be more pleasing to the user while staying as close as possible to her current looks.
3. Lithe and petite. Target’s body will become much thinner and smaller, but looking soft rather than athletic, with even her bone structure slightly shifting to accomodate her new figure. She will still be recognisable as herself.
4. Protean. Target’s body will not change right away, but will become much more responsive to fluctuations in her lifestyle. Skincare, dieting, sports and even applying cosmetics will change her body and face much more quickly, easily and to a further extent than would be possible otherwise.
   Note: These fluctuations may go in directions the user does not find more attractive.

These are quite varied. And it looks like they were tailor-made for her, as they reference her weight directly.

Let’s go by process of elimination here.

First of all, I don’t want the lithe and petite one. The app says she’ll still be recognisable, but I feel like making her rail-thin would take away from what makes her unique, and this isn’t what I want.

The second one I’ll get rid of is plus size. Yes, it’d be the one that respects her individuality the most, but at the same time, these body editors are quite expensive, so I’d like them to have a more noticeable effect than this.

So that leaves us with the hourglass one and the protean one. I like both, but I’m afraid that protean might turn out to be a bit too much, especially for my first use of this item. What if her body changes so quickly that she needs a change of clothes several times a day? Or what if the changes are so **** that she can barely function anymore. I’d love to try protean at some point if I’m offered the option again, but not before I’ve seen the extent of the body editor’s effects.

I select the hourglass figure option, only to be brought to Rachel’s profile, where a new line has appeared at the bottom of the page:

Applying body update: 0%.

Makes sense that this wouldn’t be instantaneous. The app might make everyone rationalise why her body’s changed, but it’s not like there could be even a tenuous reasonable explanation of what happened if Rachel’s body instantly transformed itself in a puff of magic smoke. I do wonder how long it’ll take to get to 100%, but I’m in no hurry, we’ll see what happens.

Right as I’m about to switch off my phone, it vibrates with a notification from Jenny:

“hey there! do you wanna go downtown tomorrow?”

We’re calling the nearby village “downtown” because it’s downhill from the school and it technically meets the legal definition of a town.

Before I can type a response, a second message comes in:

“we can even get julian to come with us”

She’s noticed that I had a certain fondness for her not too long ago, and she’s since decided she would be my wingman, a decision that I’ve come to fear more than anything else. Jenny tends to be a bit of a chaotic **** in people’s lives, and I truly have no idea of whether she’ll help me or make things worse.

Luckily, I have a safety net if she messes things up.

“Sure, that sounds great! I could do with a day out,” I text back.

“and some time with a certain someone,” she replies ☺️ly.

I shake my head in a silent chuckle. How can the same woman be so heavy handed with some things when she can be so subtle with others?

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you may be implying. I’ll simply be happy to spend some quality time with two very good friends.”

“yeah, one friend you casually fondle on the regular and another ‘friend’ you desperately want to bed”

“What can I say? It’s how I like my friendships”

I turn off my phone and decide there’s one more thing on my agenda today.

I want to check up on Tatiana.

Last night, I stayed up late wondering if she’d recovered from the shock of getting her new belief. I keep swinging back and forth between guilt and schadenfreude, but at the end of the day, I do want to make sure I didn’t hurt her.

And... well, I may have a little tweak I’d like to make to her belief.

And unlike Rachel earlier, I do know where to find her.