"Okay, sure."

"I do apologize for all this." 

"Honestly, it could be a lot worse."

"Death is pretty bad, yeah." 

"Okay, so am I writing an entire visual novel right now, or what? Because, I mean, I'll do it, but it might take me a while, I hear a lot of words go into those things."

"Oh, no no no. I have a bunch of mechanical choices for you to pick through, and then you can add as much compatible detail as you like, and then I send the whole thing off to one of the creative teams and they do the actual writing."

"Perfect, okay, let's hear it."

"In broad strokes, the choices you have are your destination world's tech level and magic level, your hairstyle and hair color--it's that kind of story--your species, your social role, your fiance's social role, your heroine-nemesis's social role, your canonical counterpart's bad ending, a couple of minions, and your perks and flaws." 

"How much, like, detail work am I doing here? Because I definitely have some thoughts about romance stories."

"You can't put in any details that contradict mechanical choices you've taken, or that require mechanical choices you didn't take, or that conflict with one of the non-choice limits, but otherwise you can put in as much detail as your heart desires."

"Excellent."

Grin. 

"Do you want to start with the hair choices? I warn you, some people find them...limiting."

"I will try my best to be open-minded. What are the hair choices?"

She ticks off her fingers. "Drill Hair, Hime Cut, or 'Elaborate.' They each come with mechanical consequences besides how your actual hair looks on your actual head--although it doesn't necessarily need to be hair qua hair, depending on your species-related choices."

"Well, what do each of those look like, and what are their mechanical consequences?"

"'Drill Hair' looks like," she changes her own hair to match, "or variations thereon, and gives the perk, 'Ohohoho!'" 

She does the actual Ojou laugh, hand gesture and all, as she pronounces the name of the perk. 

"...and what, dare I ask, are the mechanical consequences of," she clears her throat and poses appropriately, "'Ohohoho!'?"

"By deploying your villainous laugh, you make yourself a more intimidating figure, frightening your enemies and encouraging your allies."

"Fascinating! But not really my speed. Next?"

"Hime Cut." Her hair changes again. "The associated perk is Silk Hiding Steel, granting you a core of inner strength and determination beyond whatever you have already; no matter what you'll always be able to keep control of yourself and make reasoned choices, no matter how affecting a situation you're in."

"Hmm. Also not traditionally my speed, though I can see the appeal. What about 'Elaborate'?"

"Elaborate doesn't actually have a central example I can demonstrate. It's anything where it looks difficult enough to handle that it justifies having a maid just for it, whether that means a complicated set of braids or hair down to your ankles. And it gives a maid minion."

"Hmmmmmm. Okay, I'm leaning Hime Cut but I want to hold off on making this choice until I have a better picture of the aesthetic and practical landscape here. Can I do that?"

"For sure. Nothing is set in stone until you actually leave."

"In that case, what's next after hairstyle?"

"Hair color. The hair colors are Blonde, Redhead, Silver, Brunette, and Rainbow. Redhead means like red red hair, not just orange; Silver means actual silver or white, not just grey; Brunette covers both brown and black, and 'Rainbow' basically means arbitrarily absurd anime hair. These also have mechanical effects. Appropriately, Rainbow's effect is to bring more anime tropes into Villarosa."

"What about the rest of them? Does Blonde do anything fun?"

"Blonde is, uh, the default. Its effect is you don't have any of the effects of the others, if you don't want them. Redhead increases your strength and emotional intensity; Silver increases your intelligence, artisticness, and magical potential. Brunette makes you more, uh, relatable, less haughty disconnected ten-dollar-banana rich bitch."

"I've never seriously considered changing my hair colour before, but I think now might be the time to start. ...how haughty and disconnected am I going to have to be if I don't go brunette?"

"Well, that's really up to you, in terms of your actual behavior; what Brunette does is--well, firstly, reduces that kind of behavior from your canonical counterpart, but also, helps soften people's willingness to buy a more grounded persona from you, despite your wealth and status."

"Innnteresting. Okay, I see it. ...tentatively Silver, but I still want to see the bigger picture before I make any firm commitments."

"Of course. Next is species--the default terms for the options here are 'human' and 'elf,' but what that actually means is, assuming Villarosa has multiple species with distinct tiers of specialness, do you want to have to take a flaw later, in order to be the more special one. Plenty of people just take 'human' and don't include an 'elf' option, but other people think the flaw is worth it. Also, despite the name, you can customize the species approximately arbitrarily, except that if you have both you can't sneakily make the 'human' option actually better." 

"And I suppose if I invent multiple species with different advantages and disadvantages and no clear winner, they all count as 'human'?"

"Yes, but you have to be relatively careful to balance the advantages and disadvantages, and your ability to pull funny business about what counts as an advantage and what counts as a disadvantage is limited."

"Far be it from me to pull any funny business. Though I suppose I don't know what your standards are. I definitely mean to take questions of balance seriously by mine."

She waves a hand airily. "To be clear, that wasn't suspicious; if you did want to pull any funny business, I consider it my job to help you sneak it under the noses of the guys whose job it is to detect it, not to help them. But you should know the parameters." 

"Hmm. Well, I do want to play it straight, regardless. I'll think about questions of species once I have a better idea of what kind of world I'm dreaming up here. What's next?"

"Sure. Next is Tech Level. The options are Faux Medieval--standard fantasy sort of deal, historical vibes with modern conveniences like plumbing and widespread literacy. Can be some other flavor of historical vibes besides 'Medieval,' for that matter, you could go with samurai or gladiators instead of knights. Actual Pre-Modern--some comparable historical setting but with all the inconveniences left in. Not recommended, especially since you have to take a Magic Level of low or none. It'll get you an extra perk but it's not worth it. Then Early Modern, Marvelous, Industrial, Steampunk, Contemporary, Cyberpunk, and Space Opera--Marvelous is a sort of nineteenth century Shelley/Verne kind of science fictional setting."

"Hmmmmm. Definitely something to think about. I could see myself going for a lot of different options there, depending. Next?"

"Oh, for sure," the angel assures her. "They're all deeply solid options, except of course for Actual Pre-Modern. Next is magic level! The magic levels are None, Low, Medium, and High. None is like Actual Pre-Modern in that you'll get a perk and it is not worth it. Medium is about where your world was."

"I find myself intrigued by High, in that case."

"In High, magic is actually public--not that it can't be public, on Medium or lower. And more people can actually do it than not, or at least had the opportunity to learn, depending on the specific details. You get the perk Magic User for free, but every other character can also be assumed to have it."

"I can guess what the perk Magic User does. Okay, probably High. What else?"

"Next is your role. The options there are the Royal Princess, the Duke's Daughter, and the Rich Heiress. The Royal Princess is the most highly-ranked and socially dominant bachelorette in the kingdom, and may or may not be the heir to the throne. The Duke's Daughter is the only daughter of the most powerful non-royal noble in the kingdom, and her engagement plays into her father's political agenda, meaning she has a great degree of ability to draw on her father's pull in order to defend said engagement. And the Rich Heiress is the only non-noble option, but also has more money than many gods."

"Hmm. We shall see. Go on."

"Your Fiance can be either the Prince Charming, the Dark Rival, or the Noble Prodigy. Either or both of the Prince Charming and the Dark Rival can be brothers of the Royal Princess--all three of both the villainess and fiance roles will exist in Villarosa, no matter which one you pick, so that doesn't require incest, although you can also go the incest route if that's your kink. The Dark Rival might alternately be the brother of the Duke's Daughter; the Prince Charming is royalty no matter what, and will tend to be the heir to the throne if the Royal Princess isn't. The Noble Prodigy is the oldest option available, having already graduated from the Royal Academy of Villarosa, where much of the story takes place."

"Decidedly not my kink, no. Do these names suggest personality guidelines for the characters?"

"Yes, I can get further into that. The Prince Charming is exactly what he sounds like--honorable, noble, kind, and optimistic. The Dark Rival is his rival, in the most trope-appropriate way: he tends to start out better than the Prince Charming at whatever the two of them are rivals over, but by the end of the story the Prince Charming will have surpassed him. The Dark Rival isn't necessarily a bad person, but he'll have a more cynical outlook than the prince charming and a more sardonic wit, at the very least. The Noble Prodigy is a member of the lesser ranks of the nobility, but has ascended to a higher social role as a result of his own merit. Exactly what it was that he did to earn these accolades will vary depending on your setting choices, but the default is something military. He has a more formal and reserved character than the other two options, but is entering into the engagement in good faith and will slowly open up to the right person."

"I see, I see... there are, once again, a lot of directions I could go with this. Next?"

"If there weren't so many directions that could be gone with this, my bosses would have gotten bored with springing this specific scenario on people. Next is the heroine. Unlike your role and your fiance's role, by default the heroine you pick is the only one that exists in the setting." 

"By default?"

"There's a flaw that adds in one or both of the others as allies for your heroine."

"I might end up wanting my heroine to have allies. We shall see. What are the options?"

"The options are the Poor Princess, the Hero's Daughter, and the Extraordinary Commoner." 

"Hmm. Are there any mechanical differences, or is it all personality and approach? What are their personality notes?"

"There are mechanical differences--the Poor Princess is, in fact, royalty, but for whatever reason she doesn't have most of the advantages thereof--maybe she's the current king's bastard daughter, maybe she's the king's treacherous brother's daughter who wasn't guilty of his crimes but is still tarnished by association, maybe she's the last scion of a previous dynasty, maybe she's foreign royalty visiting to study. It's a very free-form option. The Hero's Daughter is the child of a dead parent who did such tremendous deeds to have been elevated to the ranks of the nobility posthumously, so she has noble status but not the criss-crossing familial connections that noble families tend to build up. The Extraordinary Commoner managed to earn her position at the Academy entirely on merit, in a society sufficiently stratified that this is a truly impressive achievement. She's the most competent of the available choices. Also, each heroine gets a different mini-minion, although we haven't gotten to the minion options yet." 

"Is it necessary that earning your position at the Academy on merit be an impressive achievement?"

"Unfortunately yes."

"I'll have to think about that... all right, what's next?"

"Next is the bad ending. The options are death--gives you an extra perk--being sent away to a nunnery, being bound to servitude to the heroine, poverty, exile to an inescapable arranged marriage to a much older foreign nobleman, and 'disgrace'--you lose face, but not anything more substantial, and you have to take an extra flaw."

"It is very unlikely that I will take anything other than being bound to servitude to the heroine, but we'll see. I don't want to commit just yet."

"People who are confident enough in being able to buck the narrative often take Death just for the extra perk."

"That seems reasonable but is not my vibe unless those perks are way more enticing than I expect them to be."

"You do seem like you might be in the target audience for Yuri Heroine..."

"I'm gonna level with you, even before you said that my scheme here was me, the love interest, and one or more heroines all ending up in the same large ostentatious bed."

"Yuri Heroine and Good ending," she nods. "It's a classic gambit."

"Oh, 'good' ending strictly optional, if I am bound in servitude to the heroine at the time that's also a win in my book."

"You'll have to work harder to also get the love interest in bed at the same time with that route than with Good Ending, but fair enough." 

"Right, so, what next?"

"Minions! I mentioned the Maid minion earlier, while we were doing hair. Even if you don't take any Maid minions, you'll still have maids, unless you do something to prevent that; the difference is that a Maid minion is extremely competent, highly loyal, and has a particular skill or skillset of your choice beyond what a maid would normally be expected to have."

"I don't really see myself as the minion-having type, but maybe I should broaden my horizons. What's the selection?"

"Well, they're called minions, for approximately genre reasons, but they can easily be reframed as allies or even friends--the 'Classmates' minion is actually two girls of slightly lower social status than yours who will by default see you as the 'leader' of the trio and follow your instructions. One advantage that they have for both hostile and non-hostile 'villainess'/heroine relationships is that they're often in a better position to pick up gossip than you are. The Admirer minion is a boy who is head-over-heels for you, and will act as a solo spear counterpart to the Classmates. There's also an option to upgrade him to one of the 'fiance' options you didn't choose, which is a popular option for girls who plan to yield their original fiances to the heroine instead of seducing her; it still requires some finagling, having another high-status option to replace your fiance with can be useful for mitigating the consequences of losing him. Not necessarily the best pick for your plans, but hey, nobody ever said you couldn't go higher than a triad. Although to be clear he will remain loyal even to villainesses who choose to relentlessly pursue their original target and make it clear the admirer has no chance with them." 

"I confess there's a certain aesthetic appeal to the idea of piling up as many people as will logistically and narratively fit into that large ostentatious bed. Using a logistical and narrative crowbar, if necessary."

"You can pick the same option twice," she adds. 

"Much to consider. What's next?"

"The animal companion is a possibly-magical, possibly just very well trained creature who may be a pet, or a working animal, or magically connected to you in some way, etcetera. The AI minion is a human-level artificial intelligence with high-level access to other computer systems, whether they're supposed to or not. If AIs are common, an AI minion will be a step above the rest. It does require a tech level of Contemporary or higher. The Butler minion, in contrast to the others, will not do what you say; they're an older servant employed, generally, by one of your parents instead of by you directly, and serves as an older and wiser confidante and source of advice, rather than a minion qua minion."

"Well. I guess I'll see how things shape up. The multi-admirer option is a powerful lure, though."

"I don't blame you a bit. I am however required to tell you all the options."

"Of course, of course. What's next on the list?"

"We have finally come to perks and flaws, and those are the last mechanical choices."

"All right, what's the overview?"

"The perks are: 'Bad For Her, Good For You,' 'Double Route,' 'Early Start,' 'Equal Friend,' 'Extra Minion,' 'Feminine Wiles,' 'Goddess of Beauty,' 'Good Ending,' 'In Love,' 'Lady of Battle,' 'Magic-User,' 'Magical Prodigy,' 'Marvelous Talent,' 'Off the Rails,' 'Ohohoho,' 'Scientific Revolution,' 'Silk Hiding Steel,' 'Surprisingly Useful Skill,' 'Unearthly Insight,' and 'Yuri Heroine.' You get four perks for free, and then you can get additional perks by taking flaws."

"Based on names alone I suspect I want nothing to do with some of those, but let's hear the details on all of them, just in case."

"The counterfactual original Villarosa story comes in the form of a video game; the 'Bad For Her, Good For You' perk ensures that in this video game, it's possible for the player to lose, the heroine subjected to the same fate relative to the villainess would have had relative to the heroine, in the 'canonical' ending; your fake meta-knowledge would thus give you a blueprint to try to make this happen. I'm guessing that this is one of the ones you want nothing to do with."

"You are correct! I thought the name sounded unpromising and I was right!"

"'Double Route' ensures that, instead of the heroine unerringly targeting your fiance, another fiance option engaged to another villainess option will be equally compatible with the heroine; you can try to nudge her to go after the other man, but of course the other 'villainess' would object to this. I don't know if this one sounds unpromising to you or not, it could be useful for your plans to narratively crowbar as many people into one bed as possible."

"...tempted on grounds of general whimsy, but bringing another villainess into this situation sounds like a dicey prospect."

"So the next perk is Early Start, which ensures that instead of regaining your memories at the beginning of the 'story,' you'll regain them about four years beforehand--if I were trying to shoehorn as many people into one bed as possible, what I would do is take Early Start as well as Double Route and work on seducing the other villainess first, before 'canon' starts."

"Ooh. Yes, I see what you mean."

"Equal Friend gives you a preexisting, 'canonical' friendship and consequently alliance with one of the other villainess options."

"More seduceable friends and rivals to add to my pile!"

Giggle. "Yep. 'Extra Minion' is exactly what it sounds like, you go back and pick another minion. Note that no matter how many times you take the Admirer minion, you can only upgrade two of them."

"Reasonable... hmm, but what if I upgrade two Admirers and take Double Route? Do I end up with a friend slash minion who's in love with me, betrothed to someone else, and destined to run off with the heroine if she doesn't decide to steal my fiance instead?"

"Yes."

"Awkward!"

"Potentially! The perk 'In Love' has your fiance also start off in love with you--it makes it easier to reclaim his affections, but if you don't do anything to stop it he'll still end up choosing the heroine over you. So it's not like this kind of shenanigan hasn't been baked into the system from the beginning."

"I'm going to end up needing pen and paper to draw out this social graph. Anyway, continue."

"That was an inevitable consequence of trying to fit as many people into one bed as possible. 'Feminine Wiles' is, well, a powerful talent for psychosexual manipulation of mostly men but also some women."

"Potentially helpful in enacting my plan!"

"Very true. Goddess of Beauty ensures that you'll be the single most beautiful woman in Villarosa, real Helen of Troy stuff including the part where also your political relevance is in fact more likely to start a war than how pretty you are."

"Oh, fun. I'll probably pass, though. I don't want my appearance optimized for anyone's standards but mine."

"Won't argue with that one. Good Ending is like Bad For Her, Good For You in that it affects he possible endings a player of the counterfactual video game could reach; this is one in which you, obviously, reconcile with the heroine instead of getting crushed by her. And we've discussed this maybe being not what you're looking for."

"I'm not opposed to it but I'm not inclined to spend my limited perk budget there."

"Lady of Battle ensures that whatever combat training you receive, you'll become a highly proficient fighter, on par with the greatest warriors of your kingdom, and also really cool to watch."

"That sounds like somebody who isn't me would have lots of fun with it."

"Some but not all people who aren't you do. Magic-User is exactly what it says, and comes free with a magic level of High."

"Reasonable enough."

"Magical Prodigy requires Magic User as a prerequisite, and enhances your magic in some way depending on how your magic system gets worldbuilt, but it might involve learning spells faster or having a larger mana pool or having access to magics that most people don't, as a few examples."

"Fun and aesthetically pleasing!"

"It's pretty popular with people who like the silver hair option. Marvelous Talent both gives you a strong talent for something, and makes that something a traditional practice for members of your age and social rank in Villarosa."

"Oh, very cute, very cute... I could maybe do something with that, if I have the budget to spare."

"Off The Rails is a sort of two-edged sword of a perk; your fake meta-knowledge becomes much less applicable as the narrative structures holding the story in place collapse, leading to it being easy to butterfly effect away major events and plot beats as trivially as by wearing a different dress one day, let alone any discrepancies between your personality and your 'canon' counterpart's."

"Potentially very useful!"

"I already told you about Ohohoho!...Scientific Revolution requires a tech level of Faux Medieval or Early Modern and greases the wheels for you to reinvent and spread technology at your previous world's tech level."

"See, I feel like I can just invent a world that already has the tech level I want, and save the fuss."

"Ah, but then you don't get the credit for the tech level. In all seriousness I think this is just another perk designed to appeal to someone who is not you."

"I think if I were pursuing a very different strategy I could take some joy in personally advancing the forefront of technology by several centuries. But given my aims here it would just end up distracting me from The Pile. Next up was... Silk Hiding Steel, I think, which you've also gone into? What came after that?"

"The next one is Surprisingly Useful Skill. This perk makes it so that, some skill that you already have, that you wouldn't expect to be particularly relevant in the kind of setting you're going into, instead will be. Maybe the magic system runs on a programming language you already know, or a kind of poetry you're good at composing is the most locally favored style and poetry is very socially important, or the silly dance you made up when you were twelve happens to delight a magical creature of some kind and they give you a boon. Something like that."

"Interesting. ...do I have to take this perk if I do a lot of detailed worldbuilding that bases the world's magic system on the magic I already know?"

"No, because that useful skill wouldn't be surprising."

"You know what, that's very fair!"

"The next-to-last perk is Unearthly Insight, which lets you put things together and discover secrets more easily--it can come in the form of a minor divination talent, or just soup up your brain a bit to make putting things together easier."

"Do I get to choose which or is it out of my hands?"

"Well, it's not going to be a minor divination talent if your magic system doesn't allow for them."

"Aww, no metanarrative shenanigans for me? Fair. Okay, so who's next?"

"No metanarrative shenanigans whose components don't have diegetic justifications. The last perk is Yuri Heroine, which does exactly what it sounds like."

"Ah yes. Crucial to my plans, that one."

"Highly. So the flaws are Abhorrent Admirer, Anything You Can Do, Dark Secret, Ditz, Equal Enemy, Ghost In The Flesh, In Character, Jealousy, Late Start, Magicless, No Compromise, Not A Fan, Patriarchy, Peggy Sue, Save The World, Sickly, Spoiled Rotten, There's Two Of Them, Unattractive, and Unprepared."

"There are so many of those that sound like I won't want them! But I will hear them out just in case."

"Abhorrent Admirer is like the Admirer minion, except that he's guaranteed to be useless to you, deeply annoying, and in some kind of situation where you can't just immediately make him go away."

"I will restrain the urge to pit my ability to choose to like someone against the scenario designers' ability to provide me with a really annoying admirer."

"Thank you for your restraint," the angel says seriously. "That is an arms race that could end unpleasantly. For other people who are not you."

"...what do you mean?"

"Unpleasant people are rarely unpleasant only to one person. Also, if the character-building team felt like they couldn't concoct a person you would dislike, they might move into the areas of downright hazardous." 

"I see. Yeah, overall probably best not to go there."

"'Anything You Can Do' means that literally every skill you have, the heroine will be better at it than you are."

"Every skill? What counts as a skill? Can the heroine flawlessly impersonate me? Does she love pretty colours as much as I do? Is her handwriting as cute? Is she equally moved by the romantic vision of being bound in servitude to her alleged nemesis?"

"Not unless your personality is something you deliberately constructed or are otherwise doing on purpose, no, she'll be able to write as cutely but may or may not choose to do, so, and no, respectively."

"Hmm. So it's more narrowly about the kind of skill you could be graded on or have a contest about? Does it also mean that anything I put effort into learning once we know each other, she'll get the same benefit for free?"

"No, but she's more likely to independently learn it, and she'll get better results from the same amount of effort as you."

"I think I want it. What's the next one?"

"Dark Secret! You, or your family, have some kind of secret that would be socially catastrophic if it got out. You get to pick the secret, but take care to consider how 'X is a catastrophically devastating secret' is likely to shape society, for any given value of X."

"Oh that sounds like such a fun puzzle though... I'm tempted but we'll see how things shape up once I'm starting to sketch out my world. What kind of time limit am I working with here, anyway?"

"If you spend so long here that you cease to communicate intelligibly, then I will finalize your most recent penciled-in options and send you on your ay."

"...hmm. Hypothetically, what would happen if I stayed here indefinitely while remaining lucid?"

"Then we would continue to converse, I suppose. The pocket dimension we're in is severely time-dilated, and I categorically don't get bored."

"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."

"Yep. The next flaw is 'Magicless,' which can only be taken with magic level high and can't be taken with Magic-User, for obvious reasons. So it doesn't actually buy you a perk, on net."

"I'm sure that's someone's idea of a good time, and I can even kind of see the appeal on some levels, but I'm gonna have to pass."

"I don't usually recommend it, no. The next perk is 'No Compromise,' which I disrecommend for approximately the same reasons as Jealousy. It's not identical in effect--more competitiveness, fewer interpersonal feelings--but it isn't especially compatible with your planned polyparty."

"Yeah, let's not. Next?"

"Not A Fan. You don't get the fake meta-knowledge download. Which is pretty much free points if you write a good enough visual novel."

"I am absolutely going to write the best visual novel I possibly can."

"The next flaw is Patriarchy. The heroine has metanarrative support in breaking the glass ceiling, but you don't." 

"I'd really rather not introduce extra avenues for people to have a hard time in this world besides the ones necessary for the plot."

"I appreciate that. You might also want to avoid Save the World on that front, although that one's easier to do without collateral damage."

"Oh? —we'll get there, don't skip to it if it's out of order."

"It's the next-to-next one, this conversational thread should still be fresh-ish when we get there--the next flaw is Peggy Sue. With this flaw, while you're regaining your memories of your original world, the heroine will be regaining her memories of an alternate timeline where the 'canonical' villainess murdered her fiance rather than lose him to the heroine. She'll have plenty of extra skills, useful foreknowledge, and a grudge. It's possible to convince her you're a different person than the one she remembers, but it's an uphill battle."

"Presumably the hill is even steeper if the person she remembers is living in my head... Does it have to be murder, and of the love interest specifically, or can it be some other suitably villainous event?"

"Has to be murder of the love interest specifically."

"It's just so much more thematically appropriate if it's the heroine's bad ending instead! But I probably won't take this one anyway. Go on."

"I mean, the heroine loved him and she's really fucked up about it, in this scenario. I'd call it a bad ending for her. Anyway, yes, next one is Save The World. It introduces some threat that the world has to be saved from; you can insert yourself into the saving of it, but in 'canon,' it's the heroine and her posse who do it."

"Definitely an option, but I don't think it's my preferred kind of stakes. Collateral damage is nobody's friend."

There are dozens of jokes the angel could make in response to that but she has no confidence Rosy would get any of them. "Next is Sickly, which does exactly what it sounds like, giving you a weak constitution and a high vulnerability to disease. You won't catch anything that'll kill you, but you can end up pretty miserable."

"I'd better steer clear. I'm going to need a lot of energy to manage all my schemes."

Snort. "I don't doubt it. The next one is Spoiled Rotten. You get expensive tastes, a greatly reduced mental resilience versus being denied things you want, and an increased tendency towards temper tantrums."

"Hmmmm. Is this a tendency I can apply character development to if I try hard and believe in myself?"

"Depends what you mean but basically yes? It's not like In Character, where once you demonstrate sufficient external character development the problem goes away, it's something where you can, you know, learn to cope with it and behave well despite continuing to have the impulses."