HTML Accidental Mind [v3.6 Alpha] [Myscra]

[andy60]

That's a shame I was, about to delve off into what you thought the glowing eyes signified and what powers the MC might be subtly exhibiting, I'm of the opinion that the glowing eyes and the sexual telepathy may not be same power. I was also thinking that it might not be (only?) healing we are seeing as a secondary power, I mean have we actually seen the MC physically injured yet? There seems to be a presumption he has been but???

Well I was more talking about leaving the discussion about the character morality behind for reasons already stated in my previous post.
I have no problem speculating about powers.

On the glowing eyes:
It is intriguing that it is as of now the only power manifestation that affects the physical world. All of our powers are as of now purely mental in effect. So those powers causing a physical reaction is interesting to note.
It also makes several scenes extremely hilarious. If during Prism's first visit we had just opened the door first and then scanned her mind we would have gotten punched right then and there. if not arrested and game over. And given the numbers of supers in the city there have to be some other ones that can detect UV radiation. Regardless if it is power based or a scanner in their mask/helmet.
If noone else Photona certainly should. I can just imagine her civilian self going window shopping at the mall and coming across a kid whose eyes constantly glow. That would not end well, given what we know about her and the legal side of things.

On the healing:
Hard to tell. Prism and a few other scenes certainly imply that getting some form of healing and/or durability upgrade is really common for supers in this world. On the other hand our seemingly complete lack of the rest of the 'standard array' is somewhat weird. It is entirely possible that this is some form of unconscious use of self-biokinesis by the MC. The big counter to this is that I feel that Sam should be able to detect that and know the difference. Which brings me to

our psychic powers in general:
The most important fact is than our power is not static but dynamic.
While there is a decent bit of talk about 'our potential' and that we have a similar pervy focus as Sam in the beginning, that seems to be the tip of the iceberg. Our power is clearly capable of growing. Just this update we explicitly got told to improve our power to penetrate Prism's mind.(in game terms reaching a level of 35 or above in our telepathy skill)
But what does this actually mean? Where exactly are the limits of this?
We are told our powers are lust focused but thats clearly a half truth.
Yes the MC seems to have an easy time detecting sexual energy but a) Several of our telepathy training scenes are not in fact lust based and show the MC doing basic mindreading. b) our stealth field is as emotionally neutral as it gets.
So what other PSI powers could we learn? And how far can we push our current ones?
What range could we push our mindsense to? How well would our powers work on animal minds?
Even if we assume that learning a new PSI trick is way easier when it involves sex in some way, there are several possibilities.
For example the MC likely would need little persuasion to try and learn telekinesis by spending an afternoon staring at and trying to fondle Kiara's tits with his mind powers.
And that is just one psionic discipline with telekinesis being a pretty basic application.
Could we learn various forms of extrasensory perception? touchsight? What about above mentioned biokinesis? Energy manipulation of various kinds like pyrokinesis? Or maybe throw lightning and yell about how our power is unlimited(only half joking)
What about precognition? It's a classic psychic power. Or the reverse postcognition. Even petricognition can be really cool in some stories.
Psionic/Psychic powers can be so versatile in the right hands.
Sure, I am aware that the protagonist isn't the most motivated or training obsessed person but he seems enough of a gamer to understand the concept of grinding and decent character builds in RPGs. And that is not even getting into proper minmaxing.

On Prism's power:
One thing that clearly stood out to me is her saying that she used to have enough power to easily blind someone. But after going through control training via the Society she has never been able to reach that previous height of power and needs to make do with having fine control now.
Given what we now know about how bloody shady some parts of the Super Society are, that might be another manipulation.
I wouldn't be suprised if during the upcoming dreamdives we discover some kind of throttle on her energy output.
Which might really make Prism go nuclear in rage.(Do I need to point out this is a merely turn of phrase? I was just talking about superpowers afterall) In general I wonder what other revelations lvl3-5 will bring. Who else? Oh yeah

On Nayika's power:
Given the name of it("Subjective Zeitgeist") and the suspiciously easy time she has finding us while having sex despite our stealth field(The uni library; the city mall and a random suburbs dinner in a complete different part of the city), my running theory is that it at the very least has strong perception element to it. There is too little to nail all of it down but on that I am pretty confident.
Another guess it that is adapts based on various factors(be it her own perception or outside). Depending on the particulars that however might also be a weakness which is why people are the tight-lipped about it.
I am also left to wonder how that might interact with more direct contact to own powers.

Mmh this turned into more rambling than I planned but it is understandable enough I hope.

 

[Malleee]

On the glowing eyes:

I had honestly not considered Phontona, on that front, it raises an interesting question about when Sam uploaded the legal skills too, I had presumed that Sam was just letting the MC's brain do most of the heavy lifting there, but the lack of glowing eyes suggests not.

The MC has use his awareness of what Kiara is upto while next to Prism (when they find her tied up for the bondage session) which suggests they are not glowing with aspects of his powers. Which made me wonder if the glowing it was secondary power trigging by association or something. I imagine glowing eyes would have been obvious to Prism when he was obfuscated and following her.

I would presume that certain supers are noting weird low level powers all over the place, perhaps mostly they tune it out unless it's above some level?

On the healing:
Hard to tell. Prism and a few other scenes certainly imply that getting some form of healing and/or durability upgrade is really common for supers in this world. On the other hand our seemingly complete lack of the rest of the 'standard array' is somewhat weird. It is entirely possible that this is some form of unconscious use of self-biokinesis by the MC. The big counter to this is that I feel that Sam should be able to detect that and know the difference. Which brings me to

I'm not sure what Sam is able to detect in the MC's mind, I feel his at a bit of an impasse, The MC's latent ability held him out to a large extent, I suspect he's a bit of a genie in a bottle right now, and I don't think he has unfettered access to the MC's mind scape. There's at least once where he is quite surprised to find the MC in the bottle (so to speak) with him. I suspect that Sam had to prove to the MC's subconscious that he was a symbiote not a parasite at the beginning, the legal stuff being a peace offering of sorts, before it really let him in.
Not to say Sam could not have forced it, just he was not in a state to desire that much of a fight.

I suspect not all powers develop/activate at the same time, I also suspect that most supers have powers they have never accessed, Sam's description includes that his powers have been genetically and psychically improved from base.

I suspect that the MC's durability might be higher than I expect, I'm just not sure we've seen any healing so to speak, mostly he was just not injured in the first place. I think its possible there is some low level of standard array developing in the background. I do wonder if the limiting factor for the MC here is confidence and belief? He seemed to get fit in the gym quite quickly, though that could just be a narrative thing.

All that said though Umbralette manhandles you without much effort and seems on a par with Prism for outright physical strength. (though I did wonder why Prism's speed was not more of a factor in their fight C3 sounds very fast.) You were bleeding when you arrived.. so you were injured when your head hit the car. Which would suggest healing not toughness.. but then perhaps Umbralette was surprised you were actually alive at all?

our psychic powers in general:

You raise some interesting points, I've wondered about similar things with more mainstream heroes, Why does superman have a body that's ripped? how is he building those muscles? where is he finding the resistance needed? There's a strong argument that his powers are all mental. (or he's just genetically encoded to look like that)

I agree, even more you could build a mental construct to do the training for you... like the one to walk home. I suspect the standard array is a common misconception. Supers likely all have a similar base set of abilities but they all stem from different sources. Touching on what you say about Prism I would not be surprised to find out that Sam is currently tamping the MC's powers down, both just by taking up space, and perhaps deliberately to stop odd things happening before you can control them. Sam needs you not to get noticed, more so than you do.

I also wonder how fast the MC can think, Prisms fast but can't think fast enough to benefit from it in a lot of situations, Right now the MC is split brain, resources are being devoted to Sam, and we know that if these resources are damaged, that Sam can be affected, as shown by Sam's reaction to Kiara's mind controlling the MC. If Sam is not there how much more can the MC do?

I also found it interesting how thoroughly the MC eroded Umbralette's defences, while I assume they were not top shelf, she is the minion of a powerful super, I would expect them to be strong/effective.

On Prism's power:
Given what we now know about how bloody shady some parts of the Super Society are, that might be another manipulation.

Yeah, I think you are on the money there. The other view could be that the better the control the less power she can output, right now all she's learning is control, perhaps less control means more power.

On Nayika's power:
Given the name of it("Subjective Zeitgeist") and the suspiciously easy time she has finding us while having sex despite our stealth field(The uni library; the city mall and a random suburbs dinner in a complete different part of the city), my running theory is that it at the very least has strong perception element to it. There is too little to nail all of it down but on that I am pretty confident.

It's a weird name for a power, looking it up suggests its the "spirit of the time" or "cultural climate of the era".. At a guess she's able to tap into the subconscious of the masses? perhaps even wield it somehow? Depending on how that works, what Kiara is doing to the the townsfolk would be having some weird effects on her. She might be kind of like the Sandman series gods, affected by what the masses believe/feel. Delirium being a great example of this.

 

[Jove76]

On the subject of a couple points of Malleee's commentary-
It occurs to me that "relations" with Sam could fairly easily be achieved if desired, without making the MC bisexual (strictly speaking). Assuming he is to ever get out of MC's head, it seems plausible that Sam's clone which he inhabits could be genetically altered to be female. That is, after all, a pretty slight manipulation of the DNA, and I can think of a myriad of narrative ways to manifest that outcome.

On the topic of Kiara's "power trip". I personally enjoy what that brings to both her character, and the narrative possibilities such moral ambiguities provide for the narrative. It is easy to objectively perceive someone "tripping" when given the luxury of being external of the situation (such as we the reader, who are literally external). However, even for characters aside from herself being so objective is varying degrees of possible. To say nothing for the possibility that it may be an over-reach to perceive MC or Sam as being so morally righteous that they would abhor any and all actions that could be perceived as "non-con". Personally, I never got the impression that Sam was so much "being morally righteous", as he was simply warning MC of the repercussions of going full "evil overlord".
Perhaps I am mistaken, in that perception. It has been a few updates since I read this story, and am currently not back to the late stages of Kiara's scenes. Personally, I enjoy little more in a story than moral ambiguity, and the complex self-examinations that come from such writing. I take little value from overtly virtuous characters, that provide me with no opportunity to genuinely explore my own ethical boundaries, nor with their shallow conflicts with "black hat" villains.

Perhaps the most interesting comic book villain, to me, was Mr. Purple from the Jessica Jones graphic novel, because it constantly seemed unrealistic that villains are always motivated by some grandiose goal like "world domination", when humans are ultimately far more motivated by their biological imperatives and base gratifications. There is no stronger evolutionary imperative than reproduction, and nothing more "base gratification" than sexual pleasure and the feeling of control (due to awareness of our own mortality, and the lack of control that makes us feel as a constant resonance in our lives). I would consider anyone dangerous if they were incapable of admitting they would be tempted, on some level, to gratify such desires if they found themselves with actual "mind control" abilities. The one thing demonstrated by those individuals throughout history that most closely represent "evil super villain", is unwavering belief in their own infallible moral righteousness. I would find it both incredibly delusional, and thematically vapid, to write a story about people who suddenly gain mind-control abilities and none of them are compelled to forgo a rigid ethical framework. Especially a character who is well defined as being insecure, as is clearly the case with Kiara due to her father leaving among other things.

 

[Malleee]

On the subject of a couple points of Malleee's commentary-
It occurs to me that "relations" with Sam could fairly easily be achieved if desired, without making the MC bisexual (strictly speaking). Assuming he is to ever get out of MC's head, it seems plausible that Sam's clone which he inhabits could be genetically altered to be female. That is, after all, a pretty slight manipulation of the DNA, and I can think of a myriad of narrative ways to manifest that outcome.

I don't think I suggested that though I suspect that Sam's gender identity is set, I'd imagine he'd be up for giving it a shot for a while, But I don't think I made this suggestion anywhere.

On the topic of Kiara's "power trip". I personally enjoy what that brings to both her character, and the narrative possibilities such moral ambiguities provide for the narrative.

I have no objections to it, its was some of the interactions it caused I felt were off kilter..

To say nothing for the possibility that it may be an over-reach to perceive MC or Sam as being so morally righteous that they would abhor any and all actions that could be perceived as "non-con". Personally, I never got the impression that Sam was so much "being morally righteous", as he was simply warning MC of the repercussions of going full "evil overlord".

Not sure what you mean here, Sam robs banks and likely pushes people around with his mind, but I imagine he stops short of rewriting personalities, Kiara does not seem too, and I don't think Sam would passively ignore it. I read Sam as a live and let live kind of guy. Makes someone open the vault door, and move on. Sam does not seem to me to be the guy who would keep you as a slave... Kiara does, and I think Sam would not quietly ignore it, I think he would, as a minimum, be vocal about this being dangerous, evil even.

I think there are people that Sam would crush into gibbering piles of goo, though I think he'd not want to do it. He saw himself as a hero, enough to join the hero league, and not just an in and out kind of thing, he designed all of their mental defences, he was a trusted member, I don't think that permanently enslaving people is something Sam could appreciate.

But... That's what I read.

 

[pklmjn]

It's a weird name for a power, looking it up suggests its the "spirit of the time" or "cultural climate of the era".. At a guess she's able to tap into the subconscious of the masses? perhaps even wield it somehow? Depending on how that works, what Kiara is doing to the the townsfolk would be having some weird effects on her. She might be kind of like the Sandman series gods, affected by what the masses believe/feel. Delirium being a great example of this.

"cultural climate of the era" is imho the better translation but that obviously collides with subjective, at least when using it in german with it's usual meaning. After reading enough newspapers/books/blogs/... and watching enough theater plays/TV/Youtube you get a rather objective grasp on important cultural undercurrents/collective beliefs and how they are changing over time.

 

[Jove76]

I don't think I suggested that though I suspect that Sam's gender identity is set, I'd imagine he'd be up for giving it a shot for a while, But I don't think I made this suggestion anywhere.


I have no objections to it, its was some of the interactions it caused I felt were off kilter..


Not sure what you mean here, Sam robs banks and likely pushes people around with his mind, but I imagine he stops short of rewriting personalities, Kiara does not seem too, and I don't think Sam would passively ignore it. I read Sam as a live and let live kind of guy. Makes someone open the vault door, and move on. Sam does not seem to me to be the guy who would keep you as a slave... Kiara does, and I think Sam would not quietly ignore it, I think he would, as a minimum, be vocal about this being dangerous, evil even.

I think there are people that Sam would crush into gibbering piles of goo, though I think he'd not want to do it. He saw himself as a hero, enough to join the hero league, and not just an in and out kind of thing, he designed all of their mental defences, he was a trusted member, I don't think that permanently enslaving people is something Sam could appreciate.

But... That's what I read.

I did not mean to imply that you suggested that. It was merely my thought when reading what you said about relations of a physical nature with Sam not being plausible since the MC was not bi. Not that I particularly feel it would be desirable - I was just proposing a possible way to circumnavigate that reality, if indeed people really wanted to get more friendly with that character. I agree about Sam's "gender identity", but he also seems like the sort that would not be terribly distressed by occupying a female body, and there are plenty of plausible reasons that could be used that would require him to do so. I.E. perhaps a malfunction in the cloning process. Most likely, I could see him simply deciding he was curious, having had sex in a male body with nearly everything in existence.

As you said, Sam is a live and let live kind of guy. Thus I feel it more likely that even if someone skirts an ethical boundary that he personally would not abide, he is equally unlikely to impose his own ethics on another (within reason). That is the very reason I disagreed that he would make a stand on that issue, unless the behavior gets so off the rails it endangers his own well-being. He probably tilts toward "chaotic good", but I would say he is far closer to "chaotic neutral".

It is also very much a possibility that Sam is, like most people, not as he presents himself. He may be able to "see" the truth of everyone, especially the MC, but that means he likely is equally adept at masking the truth of himself from others. After all, it would serve no benefit to terrorize his host or make the MC mistrust him.

I am rerunning the game from scratch, at present. I will increase focus to his behavior to see if I become inclined to agree more with your perspective on him.

 

[andy60]

Malleee

The MC has used his awareness of what Kiara is up to while next to Prism (when they find her tied up for the bondage session) which suggests they are not glowing with aspects of his powers. Which made me wonder if the glowing it was secondary power trigging by association or something. I imagine glowing eyes would have been obvious to Prism when he was obfuscated and following her.

You are correct, the fact that they don't seem to glow only sometimes is somewhat weird and notable.
Let's examine two instances.
1.Overwhelming Umbralette (incidentally I hope we meet her again at some point)
2.Flooding Kiara with pleasure in the donut scene
Several possibilities
a. I think it is either tied to depth of connection (surface level examination does not seem to trigger it; diving into someone’s mind to mess around does)
b. Or it is tied to our specialty (unemotional telepathy doesn't trigger it; giving someone a mental orgasm does)

On the whole healing/durability bit:
It is hard to tell. Even without superpowers the human body can be surprisingly hardy at times (depending on the injury ofc; in other situations, our bodies are very squishy) There is also the simple fact that currently the game goes out of its way to remind us multiple times that we have a lowkey healing factor.
By the way that alone would help tremendously with exercise of all kinds.
Afterall what is the pain associated with most exercise? Microfractures in own's bones, microtears in your musculature not to mention an unwanted buildup of lactic acid. One of the reasons one should have off days is to give the body time to heal.
Even a small healing power would help with that a lot and make most forms of training more efficient and speed things up.

You raise some interesting points, I've wondered about similar things with more mainstream heroes, why does superman have a body that's ripped? how is he building those muscles? where is he finding the resistance needed? There's a strong argument that his powers are all mental. (or he's just genetically encoded to look like that)

So funny thing about long running comics. They built up a staggering amount of stupidity.
Superman should not be able to lift a battleship. Even if he has the strength for it placing that much pressure on a single point of the super structure would break it in half. So far so obvious.
Readers are usually perfectly willing to ignore little shit like this since it makes for a better story.
But on occasion you get new writers who want to prove how smart they are. They are not that smart.
So, someone decided that Superman is in fact a touch based telekinetic to explain how he can lift entire buildings without them crumbling etc. And no obviously this does little to explain all his other bullshit like his freeze breath but see preceding spoiler.
Comic being comics, DC has undergone multiple cosmic retcons since then so I can't tell you if that is still valid or what the current explanation is.

I also found it interesting how thoroughly the MC eroded Umbralette's defenses, while I assume they were not top shelf, she is the minion of a powerful super, I would expect them to be strong/effective.

To be fair while her power is dangerous to normies and visually impressive, she didn't strike me as all that competent.
Her biggest accomplishment was tracking us down in the first place. (an annoying spark of brilliance)
Given that she is the fourth sidekick of Retez Prism has fought I don't think Mistress Retez spends an enormous amount of personal effort on each one. Also, of note is that her 'apprentices' are supposed to fight Photona and her own sidekicks i.e. people whose power revolve around light manipulation not mental effects. Meaning those defenses are not a priority.
Thus, I think her shields are working but they are likely weaker than Sam's design in Prism's head. Another possibility is that they are primarily magical in nature and don't deal well with pure psionic power.
The last and most boring answer is resources. Putting shields in someone’s head take time and money.
If Retez can do it herself that takes time away from her other projects regularly (since shields apparently need maintenance/tuning)
If Retez can NOT do it herself she needs to hire someone else to do it for her. And the game implies that mental shields and their design are hellishly expensive.
So much so that a PR focused organization like the Super Society would rather keep using the mental design of someone they are actively accusing of using his mental powers to commit rape than pay someone else to change them. Good shield designs must be top dollar ware.

It's a weird name for a power, looking it up suggests it’s the "spirit of the time" or "cultural climate of the era".. At a guess she's able to tap into the subconscious of the masses? perhaps even wield it somehow? Depending on how that works, what Kiara is doing to the the townsfolk would be having some weird effects on her. She might be kind of like the Sandman series gods, affected by what the masses believe/feel. Delirium being a great example of this.

Ah is this your first time coming across that term? I admit it is not common vernacular for most, being a German loan word.
The best way I can describe it is 'the feel of the times'. For example, the 90s had a very specific attitude for a lot of the western world. For decades people had feared the Cold War turning hot but then suddenly the Soviet Union was crumbling; East and West Germany were united etc. The phrase 'the end of history' became famous after a book in '92. The big enemies of fascism and communism had been overcome. Sure, there were plenty of problems but we thought it would all kind of just work itself out. That was the Zeitgeist of the 90s. A mass belief shared by a lot of the populi.
Of course, any critical examination of the time period would reveal how little of this had actual weight behind it. But that is the point. It is not based on facts or logic but on emotion and beliefs.
Thus, it is also not static but constantly in flux and often can only really be examined in retrospect.
Sometimes the change is gradual, other times a single event can bring immense change about (i.e. the German unification had a great impact on the national Zeitgeist of Germany at the time)
Annnd I have gotten way off topic. So, I am cutting myself off before I start to examine the events that led to the end of the 90s Zeitgeist.

Why did I start talking about this? Oh yeah Nayika. IN CONCLUSION the use of the term 'subjective Zeitgeist' leads me to believe that her power is based on or has some base in perception. Likely mental perception. I don't know enough yet to be more precise.
Perhaps part of changes in response to the perception of others. (leading to my theory in the previous post about hiding a weakness by not explaining it.)
Or it's the reverse and she can perceive shifts in the nearby public consciousness. (If it is something like this our obfuscation fields must stand out like a beacon to her) If so, her range would be a point of interest to us.
Regardless it can't just be Kiara attracting her attention. Don't forget on the sidekick path she doesn't set up relays all over town. Kiara only does specific and targeted jobs there. The Diner being an exception.

So, who knows what is going on with Amita. Maybe her path will require us to have reached a certain level with Prism? Or maybe not. Even getting her index unlocked is not that easy or straightforward.
Jumping through various hoops to unlock her is almost like a secret party member in an RPG.
Honestly, she might not actually be necessary for main plot progression. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part.
Myscra seem to have planned out the basic structure in advance and he hasn't failed to yet so I am eager for more.

But her updates are a long way off regardless.
First Prism lvl 3-5 and then Liane 1-5.
And Prism has been fantastic so far.

 

[Malleee]

I am rerunning the game from scratch, at present. I will increase focus to his behavior to see if I become inclined to agree more with your perspective on him.

I'll be interested to hear what you come up with.

I don't mind the story being dark, or light, my comments sprung more from character interactions that did not seem (to me) to mesh well. Andy60 sees something that allows these interactions to work, I found them jarring.

I don't like Kiara, but she is the MC's best and old oldest continual friend, The MC won't see stuff in quite the light I do, But I think Sam and particularly Prism won't abide most of the stuff she is doing. Sam is less likely to hurt her to stop it, though rewiring her is a possibility, Prism is prepared to hurt perhaps kill people to stop them. (as I understand their motivations, feel free to see it differently)

 

[Malleee]

By the way that alone would help tremendously with exercise of all kinds.
Afterall what is the pain associated with most exercise? Microfractures in own's bones, microtears in your musculature not to mention an unwanted buildup of lactic acid. One of the reasons one should have off days is to give the body time to heal.
Even a small healing power would help with that a lot and make most forms of training more efficient and speed things up.

That occurred to me as I was writing it too, faster healing would lead to muscle growth you could almost visibly see.

To be fair while her power is dangerous to normies and visually impressive, she didn't strike me as all that competent.
Her biggest accomplishment was tracking us down in the first place. (an annoying spark of brilliance)

Not clear there, They can obviously track Prism, The MC seems to have been an opportunistic grab. Mainly the MC was seen as a plaything that was bait, though the laughter might have gotten him killed. She held her own vs Prism which is no mean feat. So if not on the same level close enough that you're going to need to be C2 to fight her.

If Retez can NOT do it herself she needs to hire someone else to do it for her. And the game implies that mental shields and their design are hellishly expensive.
So much so that a PR focused organization like the Super Society would rather keep using the mental design of someone they are actively accusing of using his mental powers to commit rape than pay someone else to change them. Good shield designs must be top dollar ware.

It's not exactly clear to me how this is managed in their world. You would have to trust whoever did this work, that's going to be hard for villains, but all said and done they were still there, Would be a topic Sam could clear up.

Ah is this your first time coming across that term?

Not my first time no, but it is the first time I've had to wonder about it like this, It's not a word I'd have seen in the cotext it's in so I went back and checked the dictionary to make sure I was understanding it.

Why did I start talking about this? Oh yeah Nayika. IN CONCLUSION the use of the term 'subjective Zeitgeist' leads me to believe that her power is based on or has some base in perception. Likely mental perception. I don't know enough yet to be more precise.

I'm not sure about perception, though it could be the case, I still feel "Delirium" from Sandman might be a better, analogy, not in actions but in how her powers interact with her. I'll admit to being very curious about what exactly this power is. Though she could just be a straw man being stood up by the heroes to draw something or one out.

 

[Myscra]

Dudes, I took a few days off and I came back to thoughtful and well written messages? This is the internet, Where is the Vitriol? Why hasent someone been called a Nazi yet? I expected better from all of you (/s).

In all seriousness, I just read through everything and I'm honored that people care enough to even have an opinion about the story. I have a lot to comment on so forgive me for the size of this post

Is it possible to activate the mall voyeur part in this patch ?

Which part do you mean?

It was not the need to rebuild the rapport, it was the repeating content, I'd fully completed already.

Ah, I misunderstood. I was planning new topics (there are a few already) but lost track of time.

Likely intentional since Blair is the first/tutorial character you make a connection to.

This is true.

And while upset she does listen to Kiara's explanation about how the city just seems sex-obsessed and how her actual hypnosis is very weak. (A point I believe Kiara on, given how alot of the random events play out.) Given how the scene then ends the game also seems to in agreement on this point.

Funny, how sex obsessed people are in the city. I sometimes wonder why.

Kiara's plans involve actual slaves. Prism as is would not stand for it. (not to mention she can hit kiara with her own suggestions now. ) And there's the added danger of supers who can hear kiara's "suggestions", and I'd bet Prism or Sam could point out at least one of them who might.

Any photokinetic would be able to see them and most psychics could hear them affecting people.

Somewhere out there, a member of f95 with a Moral Philosophy fetish is reading the @Malleee / @andy60 debate and is getting SO turned on.

That's my next game "Kant Get Enough"

or maybe split kiara level of evilness depending if she is a sidekick or not since you are a bigger influence if shes on her own choice making with help or following you more faithfully (the desired pleasure compared to the traditional efficient cold and hardworking to make the most of her power so being more evil like the 2 paths were she is super choosing by herself,the light version path could be the mindfucked one were she wanna be controlled more and you could even push that maybe, still, an interesting idea there from the creator, really hope to see what comes next(also thanks for the reply to the earlier comment )

Please, stop giving me good ideas. I only have so many hours in the day!

Are Prism and Photona's Appearances supposed to be 100% identical in the Index?

Nope, this is on me. I'll fix it for the next release.

as the people said, the story is really good, but I also would like to point the absurd (and comical) scenes (the whole anti-squid training, the demon lord child, Blaire's substitute, and the artist with an existential crisis). plus I think there is a comedic undertone in some scenes, like when you pleasure-nuked the small titty goth henchwoman (btw I will leave typos and observations in a spoiler tag).

I fine the absurdity to be a nice palate cleanser after writing a bunch of porn scenes.

If there are going to be more branches, There are so many choices: cutting the link, telling her, her meeting with some super (remember the VIP floor and the 3rd floor at the club).

There will be but unlikely in this game (MC being to weak to sever connections without lobotomizing himself). I may throw in the telling her scene depending on how the story develops.

I know that the goth is not one of the next objectives, but I think it should be explained what happened to her (ok, she is in a coma from a pleasure-nuke, but 'where' she is, with her boss? in jail? in a hospital?), this could be one additional conversation after raising prism's level.

Oh, I have that planned already.

- Kyle said he had to connect to the goth, if this is a link, then maybe give 1 construction point as a wink to this (even tho we don't have where to put it on this patch)

Not a bad idea.

- this is mostly an idea, but if Kyle is good mainly with dreamwalking, could he 'build' a bridge to connect prism, Kiara, and himself while they are sleeping. Like how you can visit Kiara in a dream, but the girls can visit each other. if there is nothing to use the points on consider this.

Also not a bad idea. I'll have to think on this one.

Please make the goth something like a tsundere that after each level gets pleasure-nuked

... ALSO a good idea. I was having second thoughts about one of the original ladies and umbralette may fit the bill ...

Is there a possibility that someone betrayed Sam by ratting him out? depending on how you see at some parts, it seems that way.

I'm going to leave this here without comment for no reason, also for no reason whatsoever I will mention that the second planned game is called Avenging Mind

I'm not aware that Myscra is a guy? I would have guessed at it but I've wondered.

I am a dude.

I'm of the opinion that the glowing eyes and the sexual telepathy may not be same power. I was also thinking that it might not be (only?) healing we are seeing as a secondary power, I mean have we actually seen the MC physically injured yet? There seems to be a presumption he has been but???

His most grievous injuries so far are the head wounds and brain damage.

Bugs:
There are a 2 places in the code (looks to be a cut and paste) where Kiara's name is misspelt Kirara.

Damn, thought I caught all those. I was too focused on all of my "Kaira" misspellings

It is intriguing that it is as of now the only power manifestation that affects the physical world. All of our powers are as of now purely mental in effect. So those powers causing a physical reaction is interesting to note.
It also makes several scenes extremely hilarious. If during Prism's first visit we had just opened the door first and then scanned her mind we would have gotten punched right then and there. if not arrested and game over. And given the numbers of supers in the city there have to be some other ones that can detect UV radiation. Regardless if it is power based or a scanner in their mask/helmet.

I've been tempted to have the MC use his powers and then have a bunch of bees and other insects start buzzing around his eyes (they can see into UV).

Hard to tell. Prism and a few other scenes certainly imply that getting some form of healing and/or durability upgrade is really common for supers in this world. On the other hand our seemingly complete lack of the rest of the 'standard array' is somewhat weird. It is entirely possible that this is some form of unconscious use of self-biokinesis by the MC. The big counter to this is that I feel that Sam should be able to detect that and know the difference.

It is interesting that he's missing the other pretty standard abilities.

Yes the MC seems to have an easy time detecting sexual energy but a) Several of our telepathy training scenes are not in fact lust based and show the MC doing basic mindreading. b) our stealth field is as emotionally neutral as it gets.
So what other PSI powers could we learn? And how far can we push our current ones?

Your focus and affinity are on sex and so far it's the easiest thing for the MC to use. Other powers are especially possible. Especially, if you consider the connections seem to work both ways to a certain extent

What range could we push our mindsense to? How well would our powers work on animal minds?

Sam is possibly the most powerful psychic in game and his range is measured in miles for generic detection, and theoretically infinite for people he is connected with. As for animal minds, the more sentient and self aware, the easier it is. At the MC's power level, he could sense chimps or bonobos. Many powerful psychics learn to tune it out so they can sleep.

For example the MC likely would need little persuasion to try and learn telekinesis by spending an afternoon staring at and trying to fondle Kiara's tits with his mind powers.

... That would be an effective way of doing it.

What about precognition? It's a classic psychic power. Or the reverse postcognition. Even petricognition can be really cool in some stories.

Sexual psychometry is definitely on the list of possibility.

Sure, I am aware that the protagonist isn't the most motivated or training obsessed person but he seems enough of a gamer to understand the concept of grinding and decent character builds in RPGs. And that is not even getting into proper minmaxing

Especially when Kiara (The lord of all minmaxers) and Prism (Who knows how to properly non-blasty powers) start working on him.

One thing that clearly stood out to me is her saying that she used to have enough power to easily blind someone. But after going through control training via the Society she has never been able to reach that previous height of power and needs to make do with having fine control now.
Given what we now know about how bloody shady some parts of the Super Society are, that might be another manipulation.
I wouldn't be suprised if during the upcoming dreamdives we discover some kind of throttle on her energy output.
Which might really make Prism go nuclear in rage.(Do I need to point out this is a merely turn of phrase? I was just talking about superpowers afterall) In general I wonder what other revelations lvl3-5 will bring. Who else? Oh yeah

Going to leave this here without comment. In fact, I'm not even sure why I quoted it. Ignore this response.

I would presume that certain supers are noting weird low level powers all over the place, perhaps mostly they tune it out unless it's above some level?

Each Super has a threshold for how much they want to get involved. As Prism mentioned, she's not going to drag in an old lady that can make fruit ripen. There are definitely Society members that would.

I'm not sure what Sam is able to detect in the MC's mind, I feel his at a bit of an impasse, The MC's latent ability held him out to a large extent, I suspect he's a bit of a genie in a bottle right now, and I don't think he has unfettered access to the MC's mind scape. There's at least once where he is quite surprised to find the MC in the bottle (so to speak) with him. I suspect that Sam had to prove to the MC's subconscious that he was a symbiote not a parasite at the beginning, the legal stuff being a peace offering of sorts, before it really let him in.

The lounge and a lot of the mental structures help with this. Sam spends a lot of energy trying to make sure he's not rejected by MC's unconscious mind.

Not to say Sam could not have forced it, just he was not in a state to desire that much of a fight.

He could have but it would have left MC a vegetable, with Sam stuck inside.

I suspect not all powers develop/activate at the same time, I also suspect that most supers have powers they have never accessed, Sam's description includes that his powers have been genetically and psychically improved from base.

Yep, most super geniuses eventually go the gene therapy / cybernetic route to keep up with their contemporaries. Sam did it to stay on top.

I suspect that the MC's durability might be higher than I expect, I'm just not sure we've seen any healing so to speak, mostly he was just not injured in the first place. I think its possible there is some low level of standard array developing in the background. I do wonder if the limiting factor for the MC here is confidence and belief? He seemed to get fit in the gym quite quickly, though that could just be a narrative thing.

Yes, that was entirely planned as an example of his powers and absolutely not just me writing random stuff :::looks around nervously:::

You raise some interesting points, I've wondered about similar things with more mainstream heroes, Why does superman have a body that's ripped? how is he building those muscles? where is he finding the resistance needed? There's a strong argument that his powers are all mental. (or he's just genetically encoded to look like that)

I always assumed kryptonians had some level of genetic engineering going on.

I agree, even more you could build a mental construct to do the training for you... like the one to walk home. I suspect the standard array is a common misconception. Supers likely all have a similar base set of abilities but they all stem from different sources. Touching on what you say about Prism I would not be surprised to find out that Sam is currently tamping the MC's powers down, both just by taking up space, and perhaps deliberately to stop odd things happening before you can control them. Sam needs you not to get noticed, more so than you do.

I also wonder how fast the MC can think, Prisms fast but can't think fast enough to benefit from it in a lot of situations, Right now the MC is split brain, resources are being devoted to Sam, and we know that if these resources are damaged, that Sam can be affected, as shown by Sam's reaction to Kiara's mind controlling the MC. If Sam is not there how much more can the MC do?

As I mentioned above, Sam is using a lot of power to avoid rejection. Without his body, the power has to come from somewhere...

I also found it interesting how thoroughly the MC eroded Umbralette's defences, while I assume they were not top shelf, she is the minion of a powerful super, I would expect them to be strong/effective.

They were designed to be "enough" for most circumstances.

It's a weird name for a power, looking it up suggests its the "spirit of the time" or "cultural climate of the era".. At a guess she's able to tap into the subconscious of the masses? perhaps even wield it somehow? Depending on how that works, what Kiara is doing to the the townsfolk would be having some weird effects on her. She might be kind of like the Sandman series gods, affected by what the masses believe/feel. Delirium being a great example of this.

"cultural climate of the era" is imho the better translation but that obviously collides with subjective, at least when using it in german with it's usual meaning. After reading enough newspapers/books/blogs/... and watching enough theater plays/TV/Youtube you get a rather objective grasp on important cultural undercurrents/collective beliefs and how they are changing over time.

Perhaps part of changes in response to the perception of others. (leading to my theory in the previous post about hiding a weakness by not explaining it.)

Posting these without comment. Well maybe one : You're on the right track

o say nothing for the possibility that it may be an over-reach to perceive MC or Sam as being so morally righteous that they would abhor any and all actions that could be perceived as "non-con". Personally, I never got the impression that Sam was so much "being morally righteous", as he was simply warning MC of the repercussions of going full "evil overlord".

Sam has a certain outlook of innocence. The more innocent the person, the less willing he is to mess with them. He would have less of an issue screwing with a serial killers mind and making them sexually attracted to running power tools.

I don't think I suggested that though I suspect that Sam's gender identity is set, I'd imagine he'd be up for giving it a shot for a while, But I don't think I made this suggestion anywhere.

He does identify as a male from a cultural standpoint but as someone who can hop bodies and had access to a cloning facility, he has defiently spent a few years in female bodies.

It is also very much a possibility that Sam is, like most people, not as he presents himself. He may be able to "see" the truth of everyone, especially the MC, but that means he likely is equally adept at masking the truth of himself from others. After all, it would serve no benefit to terrorize his host or make the MC mistrust him.

Easiest person to lie to is yourself.

You are correct, the fact that they don't seem to glow only sometimes is somewhat weird and notable.

It IS weird and notable.

And no obviously this does little to explain all his other bullshit like his freeze breath but see preceding spoiler.

And how he can blow away a tank and not launch himself in the opposite direction.

Given that she is the fourth sidekick of Retez Prism has fought I don't think Mistress Retez spends an enormous amount of personal effort on each one. Also, of note is that her 'apprentices' are supposed to fight Photona and her own sidekicks i.e. people whose power revolve around light manipulation not mental effects. Meaning those defenses are not a priority.

Her sidekick recruitment is kind of "Here's some power now prove you are worthy". The mental shield is designed to be enough for most situations. If she didin't have a small spark of attraction to the MC he would never have gotten past it.

So much so that a PR focused organization like the Super Society would rather keep using the mental design of someone they are actively accusing of using his mental powers to commit rape than pay someone else to change them. Good shield designs must be top dollar ware.

Comparable to high end weapons R&D in cost and time.

Jumping through various hoops to unlock her is almost like a secret party member in an RPG.

That was part of the idea. She's not necessary to complete the game but will change things if so.

It's not exactly clear to me how this is managed in their world. You would have to trust whoever did this work, that's going to be hard for villains, but all said and done they were still there, Would be a topic Sam could clear up.

To a point, the villain side of things has it's own infrastructure. We've met at least one person who is part of this so far (poker dealer with green hair) and we'll get into it more with the next update. You could find a neutral psychic selling shield designs and installation. Mistress Retez does her own work or has a minion do so.

 

[fasteddie]

Hi, so I've been having a blast with the game thus far and am super appreciative of the built in hints. I think I may have stumbled upon a bug though, because I've got Prism visiting when you call and to the point where you have to enact the plan for her to walk in on Kiara in bondage on 'accident', but I had already bought the bondage kit well before this point. I can't trigger the plan.

 

[Myscra]

Hi, so I've been having a blast with the game thus far and am super appreciative of the built in hints. I think I may have stumbled upon a bug though, because I've got Prism visiting when you call and to the point where you have to enact the plan for her to walk in on Kiara in bondage on 'accident', but I had already bought the bondage kit well before this point. I can't trigger the plan.

That's odd, not sure why it wouldn't trigger. Ill look into it.

 

[Malleee]

I had already bought the bondage kit well before this point. I can't trigger the plan.

I think I had a similar issue, if your Rap is above (or below) 29 I think it wont trigger, (your rap has to be exactly 29.) You can see this stat from the console the exact conditional statement you are trying to match should be:
"$storyline.prismQuest is 8 and $prism.rap is 29 and $player.items.bonStarter is 1"

If you need help finding the console to get this info just let me know the browser you are using, I'll walk you through it, or just post the save file here, I'll take a look. (the save will include things like character name if you changed it, so... if you have any personal details in the character name the second option might not be a good idea.)

 

[QuietlyReading]

A suggestion to improve the game:

When you have used a dream construct (e.g. the ladder in Blaire's dream), it should show up in your Vault in grey rather than white. This will let the player focus on the constructs that he or she has not yet figured out how to use.

Even better would be a way for the game to add information about them when you figure it out - the ladder could allow you to hover over it and say 'climb to the second floor of the school' while the field house keys could say 'sit in the coach's chair' to remind you where you need to go.

On a completely unrelated note, I still find it abrupt and shocking when you go from level 2 to level 3 and hang out at cheerleading practice. You've gone from Blaire being friendly and willing to chat to feeling up her breasts, which seems...like a bit of a leap.

The 'send messages' tab in the game is currently underutilized...once you have someone's phone number, it's a shame you can't simply text them a hello and ask what they're doing - they could then respond with similar text to what the game spits out in the index.

Typos:

In the Indecent Proposal story, the last section reads: She tells him no but he keeps pressing the matter. Eventually, she is forced to call security and they are not gentle. After he "trips" a few times, they frog march him out of the club … </i>

In the Oral Exam with Blaire, you get this text: It's only much later when you realize that you didn't detect the vouyer's mental signature or the they're lust.

 

[fasteddie]

I think I had a similar issue, if your Rap is above (or below) 29 I think it wont trigger, (your rap has to be exactly 29.) You can see this stat from the console the exact conditional statement you are trying to match should be:
"$storyline.prismQuest is 8 and $prism.rap is 29 and $player.items.bonStarter is 1"

If you need help finding the console to get this info just let me know the browser you are using, I'll walk you through it, or just post the save file here, I'll take a look. (the save will include things like character name if you changed it, so... if you have any personal details in the character name the second option might not be a good idea.)

So when she comes over the rapport is at 29, which counting each block in 15 is a weird amount but whatever, then after talking about whatever topic doesn't bother her the rapport hits 31. However the next time it resets to 29.

 

[tpk]

Hi, so I've been having a blast with the game thus far and am super appreciative of the built in hints. I think I may have stumbled upon a bug though, because I've got Prism visiting when you call and to the point where you have to enact the plan for her to walk in on Kiara in bondage on 'accident', but I had already bought the bondage kit well before this point. I can't trigger the plan.

I think you also need handcuffs, you can buy some at the mall

 

[Malleee]

So when she comes over the rapport is at 29, which counting each block in 15 is a weird amount but whatever, then after talking about whatever topic doesn't bother her the rapport hits 31. However the next time it resets to 29.

That's what I would expect to occur. (though the actual code flow in this area does not look like the languages I am familiar with.)
And the quest is 8 with bonstarted being 1?

What version of the game are you using? (and is it a fresh playthrough?)

 

[Malleee]

Any photokinetic would be able to see them and most psychics could hear them affecting people.

That spells real trouble. Kiara is lucky it's a shielded person who's placing them, I wonder if she planned it that way.. I would guess so.

- I fine the absurdity to be a nice palate cleanser after writing a bunch of porn scenes.
- His most grievous injuries so far are the head wounds and brain damage.

I like that kind of weirdness, Makes reading fun. (I guess it's one of these that is responsible for the brain damage you mention, elder god and all... considering the source that makes the protagonist tougher than I was crediting )

- Oh, I have that planned already.
- Not a bad idea.
- Also not a bad idea. I'll have to think on this one.
- ... ALSO a good idea. I was having second thoughts about one of the original ladies and umbralette may fit the bill ...

Honestly I've been wondering where she is, I mean if the Heroes have her how is that explained away? Prism won't able to easily explain to them, it's not like she can do that kind of damage, and if there is a psychic available to the heroes Prism would expect that they will likely see what happened to her, Prism had no way to know if Umbralette's memories are scrambled or not... Mind you it might be a dangerous mind for a psychic to enter right now too.. with the backlash of what every the MC did to her bouncing around in her skull..

I was half of the opinion that Prism just left her there. I mean if she did hand in someone in that condition they are going to jump straight to Cerebralite, they seem to know he can resurrect, or at least there are some very weird questions going on around why his got all of these clones of himself in storage.. And if they have any idea of the methods, I'm surprised that they are not keeping a closer eye on the MC and Prism herself.. Hmm I suspect there is a lot more going on here than is available to us the readers, I wonder if Prism knows more about this than she is letting on.

I've been tempted to have the MC use his powers and then have a bunch of bees and other insects start buzzing around his eyes (they can see into UV).

Kiara must have some sunburn in some very sensitive places....

... That would be an effective way of doing it.

Honestly while Kiara might appreciate back relief he might want to start with something lighter... or risk his brain leaking out his ears..

Yep, most super geniuses eventually go the gene therapy / cybernetic route to keep up with their contemporaries. Sam did it to stay on top.

Yes, while I don't expect to see it in this story anytime soon if ever, I was more pointing out that the MC is likely going to look at the same stuff at some point.

-I always assumed kryptonians had some level of genetic engineering going on.
-And how he can blow away a tank and not launch himself in the opposite direction.

I really should not have started this path of discussion. I did not consider itt, until they put genetic engineering in the movie. There was just too much other weirdness going along with his powers.. flight being the most obvious one. These types of character just suffer when they try to explain it, and they always do, and then re-explain it in a different way that does not work with the first.

Sam has a certain outlook of innocence. The more innocent the person, the less willing he is to mess with them. He would have less of an issue screwing with a serial killers mind and making them sexually attracted to running power tools.

That's some unpleasant imagery right there. I guess when you can see inside the mind of someone truly evil you might have some pretty extreme reactions to it.

To a point, the villain side of things has it's own infrastructure. We've met at least one person who is part of this so far (poker dealer with green hair) and we'll get into it more with the next update. You could find a neutral psychic selling shield designs and installation. Mistress Retez does her own work or has a minion do so.

Errr.... There's a poker game? *comes back after checking* Ok so I had no idea there was any real point to surfing the web. Lol that would have made learning to win vs Kiara much easier..

 

[Malleee]

I was half of the opinion that Prism just left her there. I mean if she did hand in someone in that condition they are going to jump straight to Cerebralite, they seem to know he can resurrect, or at least there are some very weird questions going on around why his got all of these clones of himself in storage.. And if they have any idea of the methods, I'm surprised that they are not keeping a closer eye on the MC and Prism herself.. Hmm I suspect there is a lot more going on here than is available to us the readers, I wonder if Prism knows more about this than she is letting on.

Hmm the more I think about this the deeper the rabbit hole. How far is the Society willing to go to catch Sam, how good is their replacement psychic and how much of Prism would they mess with to catch his "ghost"? I mean, we might need to be asking how much of Prism is real or even left? Is she just a honeypot? Ugh I hope not.

 

[andy60]

Hmm the more I think about this the deeper the rabbit hole. How far is the Society willing to go to catch Sam, how good is their replacement psychic and how much of Prism would they mess with to catch his "ghost"? I mean, we might need to be asking how much of Prism is real or even left? Is she just a honeypot? Ugh I hope not.

As amusing as seeing you freak out is, I do think you are vastly overthinking this. Don't dig your own rabbit holes when the game hasn't given you reason to.
As of right now we don't know what happened to Umbralette. From what Myscra said we might learn more later.
Or maybe she remains a one off.