Genderfriend-O-Mat Discussion

[Adelene]

...Addy. The mimic vampire from Aurum. Not Dusk. Sorry for the conflation.

That was clear, you're fine. :)

(She says 'o.O you expect that to work?' to the magic superstimulus option. *chuckle*)

Depending on the exact magic involved, yes. Magic can do weird things that way.

A magic-supertimululs-level pretty painting still wouldn't get a reaction out of someone who's blind; Dusk is in a roughly equivalent situation re: this.

[DanielH]

A nonmagic superstimulus painting wouldn’t get a reaction from somebody blind. A magic one might not, or it might render itself as music, or force itself to be seen anyway in one of a variety of ways, or compel them to face it even without seeing it. When translated into the original SO terms, this last one becomes especially terrifying but all the possibilities I listed have metaphorical equivalents.

[Aestrix]

Could you disentangle her reasons to growl at the willing-participant version?

She would not growl at people who use the machine or press buttons, but Yvette puts a lot of weight into the journey of falling in love? She finds an instant-win button to be distasteful for a number of reasons, including her belief that what she wants might not be what she needs. Even if it were a free guaranteed soulmate, she wouldn't want it, because it would feel set up, fake. Like she's being manipulated and missing something large and important by jumping straight to the end. Sure, she'd be happily in a long term committed relationship, but what about all of the growth she potentially would have had if she was trying to find the happy long term committed relationship? It feels like cheating, and instead of cheating the system she feels very much like she's cheating herself.

So she'd growl at it. She wouldn't stop other people from using it if it were willing-participant only (on both ends) but there's no way anyone could convince her to willingly use it herself. I even polled the most traumatized lonely Yvette and got a Hell no strong enough to surprise me. Yvette willingly pressing the button, not happening.

[DanielH]

The way I envisioned it was more like an arrow labeled “this is the person you want to talk to”, which mostly skips to the start of the interaction with the right person.

[Adelene]

A nonmagic superstimulus painting wouldn’t get a reaction from somebody blind. A magic one might not, or it might render itself as music, or force itself to be seen anyway in one of a variety of ways, or compel them to face it even without seeing it. When translated into the original SO terms, this last one becomes especially terrifying but all the possibilities I listed have metaphorical equivalents.

Those all fail to do 'show this person the prettiest possible painting', though, one way or another. Render it as music and it's not a painting any more; modify the person to make them able to see it and they're arguably not 'this person' any more. (This is especially true for something as significant as romantic inclination!) Compelling the reaction without providing the experience fails in both of those ways, even.

[MaggieoftheOwls]

...Depending on how exactly this thing works, though, this could be a perfect thing for Jokers, especially the really early-phase ones--escape your terrible dad and/or other figure of Providing A Terrible Childhood into a completely different universe and land in the lap of someone guaranteed to welcome you.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick sarcastically declines to believe that there is someone perfect for him somewhere. Steel would get someone who she can trust completely, might be platonic or not. Gren probably gets someone fun and playful and not prone to hesitating or dithering, but she's not super picky.

Should this get its own thread?

[DanielH]

I think this deserves its own thread if it’s decided that it is not sandboxable/not worth sandboxing, and maybe if it is sandboxed.

Would a Rayne know how to order up a Ripper if the machine were more than just “Press button for potential partner”? I’m guessing not.

Presumably a Bell wouldn’t custom-order her Adarin complete with the emotional unhealthiness; are there any other likely differences from standard?

[Alicorn]

Split topic, changed subject line.

A Bell would feel awkward about designing that in on purpose but she might actually do it, especially if no one was watching? Bells thrive on being essential. They would try to get around having to actually literally say that they dig Adarins falling emotionally apart when deprived of their Bells but they kind of get a thrill out of it.

[Kappa]

Bells also don't like to lie, I hear; what would happen if they ordered up their life partner with an "unhealthily emotionally dependent on me" criterion and then said life partner wanted to hear exactly what criteria they were ordered with and wouldn't take evasion for an answer?