"I'm having a little trouble figuring those out from the names alone..."

"That makes sense. What 'Bad for Her, Good For You does is that--Roses of Villarosa was "originally" a game, and with this perk it is possible for the player to lose. Go back to the Your Ending section and select a choice other than Disgrace. This is now the fate that awaits the heroine in her bad ending for your fiance's route, with your and her roles reversed. Your meta-knowledge can help you reach this ending."

While the game Roses of Villarosa has multiple routes, by default in your story the heroine will be following only the route where she "captures" your fiance and comes into conflict with you. If you select the 'Double Route' perk, the heroine will instead progress down two potential routes. Select options for Your Fiance and Your Role, and these will be the other "capture target" and his fiancee. The heroine's attentions will be divided, and you may be able to manipulate her to choose the other man... but doing so would surely make an enemy of the other villainess."

Early Start causes you to recover memories of your old life four years earlier, ages ten to fourteen, around the same time you first meet the boy who will become your fiance. This gives you a lot more time to shape your new life before facing the heroine. You can combine this with Off The Rails to ensure the canon plot won't happen in any recognizable fashion, though your conflict with the heroine will still occur in some form."

Equal Friend will cause one of the other villainess options to be a close friend; you can't order her around like a minion, but as long as you reciprocate she can serve as a great source of aid and emotional support."

"All right..." Note note. "Let's see. Feminine Wiles, Goddess of Beauty, Good Ending, In Love?"

"Regardless of whatever seductive skills you had in your previous life, the perk Feminine Wiles will top it. Pick this and you will have a particular talent for attracting and manipulating men. You still won't be able to stop your fiance from falling for the heroine, though you might delay it. By default you will be quite an attractive young woman, but with the Goddess of Beauty perk you will be widely considered the single most beautiful woman in Villarosa. It's shallow, but there's no denying this can be a powerful advantage. Good Ending changes the story of Roses of Villarosa so that there is an alternate secret ending to your route where you reconcile with the heroine and your former fiance, and thereby incur no serious punishment or consequences. It'll still take you work to achieve this ending, but you'll have a roadmap to follow. Your fiance will always fall, and fall hard, for the heroine. But with the perk In Love, you and your fiance will start the story genuinely in love. This will make him conflicted as he finds love with the heroine, more sympathetic toward you, and easier to win back. But you will be feeling these emotions as well, so it will hurt so much more if he picks her over you."

"Oh, fun." Note note note note. "Next bunch?"

"Lady of Battle: depending on the details of your version of Villarosa, you may have some level of combat training by default. Even if you do, this perk will take it to the next level, making you a highly skilled fighter on par with the strongest members of your class. Magic User: whatever the magic system in your Villarosa is, this gives you the talent and training to use it, at a level considered average for magic-users. Requires that you not have taken Magic Level: None. Magical Prodigy requires Magic User and can mean exceptional skill or access to exceptional resources. Marvelous Talent will give you a great aptitude for something outside of the domains of battle and magic--art, dance, mathematics, even underwater basket-weaving. You don't need this perk just to be good at something, but taking it will make you world-class. Whatever you pick will be considered a traditional hobby for young people of your status and gender in your Villarosa, as well. You may select this perk multiple times."

Note note nooooote...

"You said I could have four of these before I have to start paying? What are the next few all about?"

"Four, right, not counting freebies from things like Magic Level: High and the hair options. Off the Rails will remove almost all the fate patterns guiding the universe to act out the plot of the counterfactual story, although you would still be guaranteed to vie with the heroine for your fiance in some way. Ohohoho! gives you a classic villainess laugh with a nigh-supernatural--or just supernatural--intimidation factor. Scientific Revolution is irrelevant at the tech level you've chosen; if you chose a tech level lower than your world of origin it helps you uplift it. Silk Hiding Steel gives you reserves of inner strength and determination well beyond what you currently possess. 'Surprisingly Useful Skill' will make some skill you already have, well, surprisingly useful, in your new world. Unearthly Insight will give you the ability to piece together useful information, either through intelligent deductions or possibly even supernatural flashes of intuition. Yuri Heroine will ensure that your heroine will be attracted to women as well as men, giving you another avenue to influence her."

Note not note note "How broad can my Surprisingly Useful Skill be? Do I get to pick what it is? Can I pick 'art' or do I need to go narrower?"

"You do need to know what it is; you do need to pick something narrower than 'art.'"

"What about music, do I need to go narrower than music?"

"Assuming you mean making music, no, that's fine."

"Yes, I do mean making music." Note note. "Good, all right, let's see, what's next?"

"Next is flaws. Flaws are the opposite of perks; for every flaw you take, excepting those mandated by other choices, you get to take an additional perk. 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,' 'Time Twisted,' 'Save the World,' 'Sickly,' 'Spoiled Rotten,' 'There's Two of Them,' 'Unattractive,' and 'Unprepared.'"

Note note note note note note "And their meanings...?"

"Abhorrent Admirer has an effect similar to the Admirer minion, except that the Abhorrent Admirer is useless and annoying, and comes with some social reason you can't just have him ejected from your life. 'Anything You Can Do' ensures that your heroine will be better than you at everything. Careful observation has indicated that one could technically say that there are things people who chose this flaw were better at than their designated heroines, but these things tended not to be desirable skills. Self-delusion, for example. Dark Secret ensures that there is something about you which would seriously and negatively impact your life if people found out what it was. You can pick what it is, but whatever it is, it will be verboten in your new universe. Popular choices include some kind of forbidden magic, having done terrible things in the past, and a family history of mental illness. 'Ditz' will influence your mind to be less interested in and functional towards academic and scholarly pursuits, without per se impacting your intelligence. Perversely, it can make the Unearthly Insight perk more powerful."

For some reason her scribbling gets particularly excited when the angel describes Anything You Can Do.

"All right, go on..."

"Equal Enemy is, appropriately enough, like Equal Friend, but with an enemy, instead of a friend. One of the other villainess options takes a strong dislike to you. Ghost in the Flesh ensures that your 'canon' counterpart, the more villainous version of you, cohabits your body. By default you have control of the body, but if you take the flaw twice, you start out as a voice in her head instead of the other way around. 'In Character' results in a compulsion to behave like your canon counterpart. You can change your behavior, but you have to do so in a way that's in character for her. Jealousy installs a strong sense of romantic jealousy aimed squarely at your fiance."

"Oh, I've never been much of an actress but what a role to play..." Note note.

"Late Start ensures that you won't recover your memories until after the plot has been gone through and you've reached your Bad End. This gives you an opportunity to change, escape, or ameliorate your Bad End, but we still recommend not taking this with the Death ending. You can't take both this and Early Start. Magicless means you don't have and can't use magic; it requires a magic level of High and is incompatible with the perk Magic-User. Since Magic Level: High gives you Magic-User for free, buying a perk with this flaw is contraindicated unless you have some very specific build in mind. No Compromise will result in the application of a modification to your personality to ensure that you will be unable to put up with losing or sharing your fiance, and won't give up unless absolutely forced to. Not A Fan removes a great deal of the knowledge you would be given of the counterfactual Villarosa 'canon;' instead of being deeply familiar with the plot and characters, you know only what you've picked up from the people around you, which essentially means what you personally end up choosing here."

Note note, note note.

"Interesting... How does No Compromise work? The idea of being so possessive about a romantic relationship is so far outside my experience I'm not sure I could manage it if I tried."

"The exact mechanism depends on the person they're doing it to. I could speculate as to how they'd do it to you but without knowing more about how you tick it wouldn't be very informative."

"Examples are informative even if they're not the right ones."

"Many people already have a sense of romantic jealousy and it just gets cranked up. Some people have a particularly strong one installed. Some people have a space specifically carved out of pre-existing compersive tendencies to except this one case."

"I see. Probably not taking that one, then... what else?"