"Okay. So, given that I do plan to focus on the task at hand, no effective time limit. Suits me. Right, where were we?"

"The next flaw is Ditz. It doesn't reduce your intelligence, as such, but it does substantially decrease your interest in intellectual pursuits." Wry smile. "It's not popular." Especially with the silver-hair crowd.

"I could imagine it being interesting to see the world from a different perspective, but not if that was going to be the whole rest of my life."

"Yeah, flaws are sticky. Equal Enemy is the opposite of Equal Friend--instead of a pre-existing positive relationship with one of the other villainess options, you have a pre-existing negative relationship. You can take both and just have them apply to different 'villainess'es, though."

"I think I'll pass. This is going to be a positive-relationship-heavy narrative."

"I am in any way surprised by this," the angel deadpans. "Anyway, the next one is Ghost in the Flesh, which...could contribute to your project to get more people into the same bed, albeit not more bodies. This flaw puts the original, 'canonical' villainess as a voice in your head; you can cede control to her temporarily, or she can take over for a while if your internal strength falters. She's not a very nice person, and will think of herself as the rightful oner of your shared body, but in this case nobody is going to argue with you if you want to like her anyway. You can take the flaw a second time to reverse your positions but I don't recommend that."

"I bet I could make it work but I probably shouldn't set things up that way given how much extra work I'm already assigning myself. Still, the imaginary friend configuration could be neat. How closely can I define her character by putting a lot of work into deciding the world and the setup and the original storyline?"

"Fairly closely, if you do it right; I don't have any kind of cheat-sheet on how to do that and won't necessarily be able to tell if you miscalibrate something and get a different result than you were looking for."

"...well, what does 'doing it right' consist of? Just coming up with something that would make a good visual novel, and that pins down her characterization to my desired range? I think I can manage that."

"You can't directly dictate her character, so if you say, 'I'm going to declare X so that she Y," and then X leads to Y less reliably than you hoped, you may be disappointed--I'm not saying I expect you to have this problem necessarily, but you should be aware that if you do I am not necessarily going to be able to spot-check you on it."

"Sure, okay. But if I do sit down and write the whole visual novel, and the version I write is suitable for the purposes of the exercise, the version I write will be what goes live?"

She makes a so-so gesture. "Probably, if it's good. But if the creation teams don't like it enough...they'll have to use all your worldbuilding, of course, but they can change up characters if they feel it's appropriate."

"Guess I'll just have to write a really good visual novel."

"That'll do it."

"Okay, so where were we? Ghost in the Flesh, what comes next?"

"In Character! You end up with a compulsion to act 'in character' for your canonical counterpart and her role. Although you can undergo plausible character development, it would slow you down some at the very least."

"Oh, no, I'm so woefully tempted... especially if I combine it with the last flaw's bad decision mode..."

"You can do that if you like but I warn you that you can only take Early Start once, not stack it to start even earlier."

"Terrible. I'll just have to restrain myself. Next?"

"Jealousy! Exactly what it sounds like, you do not want it. Installs a sense of romantic jealousy in your head, making it if not impossible at least difficult to settle for non-monogamy on your fiance's part."

"Yeah I can't imagine that one working out well for me."

"Late start--instead of starting at the beginning of 'canon,' you regain your memories at the end, when your bad end kicks in. Not recommended to take with Death."

"I see. Yeah, that one's not going to work well with my plans, at least not in their current form."

"Didn't think so. Although, you know, you're not the only one who thinks Servitude sounds like a grand old time, and some of them think this flaw is free points."

"Exactly! But unlike most of those people I have also assigned myself an enormous amount of extra polyamory homework."