"And temperamentally...?"

She taps her chin. "The Prince Charming is more outwardly nice. Indiscriminately so, in a way. The Dark Rival is...slyer. Snarkier. He can be mean, in the wrong circumstances, but they tend to be genuinely good people underneath, and they're...choosier about  who they open up to."

"Hrm. Do you have any advance data on how good a fit you can dig up for me under each?"

"Let me see..." looking-at-invisible-thing. "...This says...hm. Either provides viable options but a higher proportion of the Prince Charming options are..." her eyebrows draw together. "Outside this service area? I don't even know what I'm looking at."

"...you don't even know what you're looking at??"

"I don't, I have never seen this error message before and don't know what it means."

"Okay, well, I guess I don't want to wind up with somebody filling it in at random because appropriate souls were outside this service area! We can promote my admirer to dark rival."

"Yes, that's probably for the best, invoking obscure error messages is rarely wise." She still looks genuinely disturbed. 

"So that's the flaw for the promotion, you'd have to have some incredible perks up your sleeve to get me to hold my nose and take more."

"Fair enough. The perks...'Bad for Her, Good for You.' It adds the ability for the player of the counterfactual game to lose, thus giving a script for how to beat the heroine. 'Double Route' opens the possibility for the heroine to pursue one of the other possible routes from the game instead of only your fiance. 'Early Start,' you get your memories back early, about four years before the 'plot' starts. 'Equal Friend' causes compatibility selection for one of the other villainess options. 'Extra Minion' is exactly what it sounds like."

"'Feminine Wiles' will ensure that you gain seductive skills far beyond anything you might have had in this life. 'Goddess of Beauty' ensures that however pretty the baseline is, you will be much much much prettier than that. 'Good Ending' introduces an alternate secret ending to the game in which the heroine and the villainess reconcile. 'Yuri Heroine' makes the heroine bisexual. 'In Love' applies personal compatibility selection to your fiance. It won't prevent him from also falling in love with the heroine, but combining it with 'Yuri Heroine' and 'Good Ending' sets up the foundation for a stable triad. It's been done. 'Lady of Battle' is exactly what it sounds like."

"'Magic-User' is exactly what it sounds like and you get it for free from Magic Level: High. 'Magical Prodigy' ensures that not only will you be able to do magic, you will be really, really good at it. 'Off the Rails' eliminates the majority of fate pressures and ensures that the story will go very differently from 'canon.' I recommend not combining that one with any of the ones that add material to the counterfactual game. 'Ohohoho!' gives you the classic anime villainess laugh and makes you more intimidating. 'Scientific Revolution' makes it easier to start one in a Faux Medieval or Early Modern tech level setting."

"'Marvelous Talent' gives you great aptitude for one skill of your choice. That skill will then be considered eminently suitable for someone of your gender and social station etcetera. 'Silk Hiding Steel' will gain you a core of inner strength and determination that ensures you don't lose your cool in stressful situations...I really don't know that that wouldn't be redundant for you, honestly. 'Surprisingly Useful Skill' means that some skill you possessed in your past life will turn out to be incredibly useful in the new. And 'Unearthly Insight' gives you, depending on the setting, some combination of deductive skills, actual premonitions, or simply uncanny hunches. In other words, it improves your ability to take the information you have and apply it usefully."

"Okay, so Good Ending is a must-have although I guess I could swap it for the off the rails one. - how many of these do I get?"

"Four, plus the free Magic-User, plus we've tabled discussion of 'death.'"

"I don't think I'm desperate for enough of these to provoke anyone with my death hack. So, Good Ending, and... three of magical prodigy, equal friend, early start, unearthly insight... do you have an opinion on the relative value of those? - also is another villainess going to be, uh, villainous."

"No. She'll be motivated to keep hold of her fiance, but the heroine won't be going after her fiance."

"Right. I guess with early start I want to make really sure children's freedom of movement and whatnot's in good shape. I suppose that's worth doing anyway. How good is unearthly insight?"

"It's supposed to be quite good. If I were you, I think I would go with Unearthly Insight and Magical Prodigy, I don't have a strong preference between the other two." 

"I guess if I'm - passing a sieve through an incomprehensibly huge ocean of souls and definitely can't save them all -

- then it isn't silly to in a very weird pseudocausal way save the ones who'd be my friends. So I'll skip Early Start and trust my young self, I guess, and cope with my memory blending from a slightly more mature standpoint. And have an Equal Friend plus prodigy plus insight. And of course good end.

- actually you've been sort of ambiguous about whether only my first generation can be rescued souls?"

"Anyone who's a named character in Roses of Villarosa can be a rescued soul, even if they aren't first-generation. I can put in a requisition for as many reincarnations as possible, but that's not going to get you everyone who isn't in the first generation and isn't going to get you anyone born after the plot ends and the Fate effects go away and we stop actively influencing the universe." 

She hesitates, visibly unsure whether or not to say something. 

"Can I have universe-native magic that grabs souls or - you okay?"

"I'm fine! It's just..." hesitate. "If I tell you something I'm not supposed to, will you tell anyone else I told you?"

"...like who?"

"Like anyone else in Villarosa while the plot was running."

"After the plot is running is fine? What event marks the end of the plot, formally breaking off my engagement?"

"After the plot ends is fine. The plot can safely be considered over when all the major interpersonal drama generated during the plot is resolved. The heroine and your ex-fiance are married or at least formally betrothed and you've arranged things to your satisfaction with your admirer etcetera."

"Okay, I won't tell anyone while the plot is in progress."