« Back
Generated:
Post last updated:
death is but the next great adventure
underlying potterverse physics have been modified to fit your screen
Permalink Mark Unread

The space is bright purple and stretches on for what seems like forever. The only apparent discrete obects in it are three human figures and a rounded woman with a bright face and glowing feathery wings. 

"Congratulations and condolences. You three have been selected by the ineffable Will of the Multiverse to reincarnate as the villainesses of an otome game. Kind of weird, but it's become a huge thing over ten or so of your years in at least a dozen universal branes adjacent to yours. I think one of the Will's avatars read a light novel in your world, honestly. Now, you won't be reincarnating into an actual otome game that already exists," the angel says. 

 "I don't get it, but according to department guidelines it's actually more in genre for us to create a custom otome-style world for you. In any case, you'll be reincarnating into the soon-to-be-created Kingdom of Villarosa, setting of the non-existent smash hit otome game, manga, anime, and Broadway musical Roses of Villarosa." 

"You'll be becoming the much-hated villainesses of the story, fated to be sentenced to a horrible bad ending for the crime of being the gorgeous and charismatic heroine's rival in love and for generally being an awful person. I'm sure you can picture how the story goes already," she adds sympathetically. "You're definitely going to be a woman in your next life, and you'll also be attracted to men, though you may choose whether you want to be attracted to women also in your new life or be strictly into the cute boys."

"If you object, all I can say is that management apologizes for the inconvenience, but the Will's... well, will is final. On the upside, though, the reincarnation process will ensure you don't suffer any severe body or gender dysphoria, as well as preventing too much homesickness for your old life. Those safeties are there to prevent any depressing suicides. I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that you won't have to relive being a baby or toddler, you'll recover your old identity and memories when you're a teenager, a few days or weeks before the start of 'canon.' Another benefit is that because we haven't actually sent the specification for Villarosa to the universe molders, we have a chance to tweak things to make sure that your otome villainess reincarnation is to your taste. Just pick what you like best, and when we're done the molders get to work, I download a batch of fresh fake meta-knowledge about Roses of Villarosa to your soul, and you get reincarnated."

"So let's get started, okay?"
 

Permalink Mark Unread

"I must say, this is not what I was expecting from an afterlife. What exactly is this 'Will of the Multiverse'?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Iiiii'm pretty sure this is some kind of hypoxia hallucination but at least it doesn't hurt anymore so I'll go with it. What does it mean for me to become a woman, is it just a body swap or am I going to get, like, personality changes? Also why are we going to be villainesses in particular? Are we pre-existingly villainous in some way?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't feel particularly villainous."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And I am certainly not."

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, no, it doesn't indicate anything like that at all. The 'Will of the Multiverse' is a powerful and perverse being who thinks real people are a valid medium to write stories with. The Villarosa paradigm has been surprisingly popular lately, and the people who have been run through it have varied wildly in inclination to villainousness. I have a lot of notes on how to be maximally ethical gleaned from previous subjects."

Permalink Mark Unread

"In a way that implies objective morality, or just interesting philosophical discussions?"

Permalink Mark Unread

The Will of the Multiverse ought to reconsider their life choices and if they don't she is going to give them detention a piece of her mind. But there's information to gather first. "That seems rather beside the point, mister . . . ?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Banner. Bruce Banner." Is her asking for his name evidence that she isn't a hallucination? It doesn't seem like the sort of thing he'd hallucinate, but it's not like he has a lot of previous hallucinations to go off.

Permalink Mark Unread

"And my name's Margaret Peregrine."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Minerva McGonagall. Now," she says to the winged woman, "explain this 'fated to be a villainess' business in more detail."

Permalink Mark Unread

"So the way it works is--hm your world definitely has video games but it looks like you're from a demographic startlingly unlikely to be familiar with them--Muggles have this thing called 'video games,' and there is a kind of video game called otome that's basically an interactive romance story where you play as the heroine. There are, in the counterfactual otome I am called to inflict upon you, three potential love interests with an arranged fiancee each, who, within the counterfactual canonical story, are each extremely disinclined to let go of them without a fight."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I am entirely disinclined to fight someone over a potential husband I've never met."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, what happens if we just--don't fight anyone?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Bruce is also disinclined to fight anyone over a love interest, partially out of a general dislike of conflict but mostly because he can't imagine winning such a contest. He just nods.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, first of all, if you decline to do anything about it, there will be social consequences. That part's mandatory, sorry, but there are various ways to try to bow out gracefully, albeit fewer when there are three of you...anyway, by the time it comes up you will have met them, you're not just being dumped into a story-in-progress, you're going to be reincarnated and have actual childhoods and everything before you start getting your memories back."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Will we keep our, like, adult levels of intelligence and self-awareness the whole time? Because if not then yikes and if so then I'll be a fully aware baby and double yikes."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You mentioned being able to set certain details of the world; what are those? And what is the base world on which those details will be added?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Also, just to be clear, do we start out in arranged marriages and someone else tries to disrupt them, or does someone else start out in an arranged marriage and we get some incentive to fuck with it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"There isn't so much a base world as a structure to build a world around," she says. "Anything you don't decide will be determined by our worldbuilding team. There are a number of mechanical choices, each of which affects the world in general and/or each of you personally, and within the limits defined by those mechanical choices, you can more or less customize whatever you want. You start out in the arranged marriages."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wait, we get to design the world? Can we have awesome future technology? Can I be an AI? I know you said we have to be girls but there are totally girl AIs in video games."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oooh, can make everyone immortal? Actually, wait, do we get to specify the end results in terms of biology and society or do we start with the raw particle physics and it gets extrapolated from there?"

Permalink Mark Unread

What are these kids talking about. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes you get to design the world, tech level is one of the mechanical choices albeit in very broad terms the details of which can be customized, you get to specify the end results."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Let's hear the full set of constraints and mechanical choices so we know what our options are and then start designing. And, given that we are dead and about to leave the universe, I think we can dispense with the Statute of Secrecy." She pulls a wooden wand out of a concealed sleeve pocket, waves it a few times, and suddenly her other hand has a stack of paper and three quill pens and inkwells. She divvies them out.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Woah, how did that work?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Magic, mister Banner."

Permalink Mark Unread

Typical unhelpful hallucination answer. Is writing with a quill pen any easier when you're dead and everything is fake?

Permalink Mark Unread

It's super not!

"Can we get some pencils? Sorry but I'm just going to make a mess with this."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm no good at this either and also left-handed."

Permalink Mark Unread

Too many useful skills are dying out these days. She makes them pencils.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you! Okay, bring on the options menu."

Permalink Mark Unread

The angel produces ballpoint pens and a stack of loose-leaf paper. "I can provide nigh-arbitrary materials from your world, as long as it can be justified as helping you make decisions in some way," she mentions. "Do you want to start with world options, or personal ones?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Presumably the world options constrain the personal options more than the reverse?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, starting with world options seems wise as long as we can revise our choices there after seeing the personal ones."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You can change any of your choices at any time," she assures them. "The strictly world-related options are tech level and magic level. The tech levels are Faux Medieval, Actual Pre-Modern, Early Modern, Industrial, Marvelous, Steampunk, Contemporary, Cyberpunk, and Space Opera. The magic levels are None, Low, Medium and High. Marvelous is the one least corresponding to a specific Muggle genre of fiction, but you can basically think of the kind of science fiction penned by Shelley and Verne."
 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Space Opera."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Space Opera! Or Cyberpunk if Space Opera doesn't have AIs for some reason."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I would appreciate explanations of both of those. Also, what magic level is our original universe, by this scale? I assume its tech level is Contemporary."

Permalink Mark Unread

"My universe super did not have magic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Mine neither--no, wait, you mentioned a Statute of Secrecy?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Your universe has a magic level of Medium. It would be High, but the Statute of Secrecy lowers it considerably. All three of you are from the same universe."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Conditional on your existence, woah. Anyway, you wanted an explanation of Space Opera and Cyberpunk? Space Opera is, like, spaceships that go faster than light and humans living on lots of planets and sometimes aliens and sometimes AIs. And then Cyberpunk is mostly on Earth but there's lots of cool computer technology often including AIs. And also sometimes the economy is a mess and all the corporations are evil because a lot of Cyberpunk is written by people with an axe to grind but I don't know about in this case."

Permalink Mark Unread

"If Cyberpunk comes with a political agenda I'm fine with Space Opera, I just really want to be an AI one way or the other."

Permalink Mark Unread

"For my part, I find my magic exceedingly useful but would prefer it be public knowledge and learnable by everyone. The secrecy imposes a number of undesirable constraints."

Permalink Mark Unread

"AIs are available at Contemporary and above, although I've been trying to convince my superiors that it ought to be available in Steampunk as well. Would you like your magic system but, say, slightly different? For example, right now immortality seems needlessly difficult. Easy immortality is one of the frequent magic-system priorities of people who have been trying to maximize the well-being of people who have to live in this universe."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I definitely want easy immortality. If everyone was AIs we'd get that for free but doing it by magic is fine too."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I intend to remain human. I don't think much of the people who have sought immortality under my magic system, but having experienced death by old age I don't think much of that either. If biological transfigurations were easier to maintain that could do it on its own without changing anything else too much."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Your magic system does run on self-consistent rules, right? I don't think I would like living in a universe that wasn't fundamentally math."

Permalink Mark Unread

"A great many things about how our magic works are poorly understood, but I have never seen it to be inherently inconsistent. Unless you make a mistake, casting the same spell always produces the same result."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't understand all the mathematical principles myself, but the magic system in question is not one of the truly obnoxious ones that refuses to be scientifically understood. Those exist. I am allowed to tell people they can't have them."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Those exist? I want absolutely none of that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Those exist! There's this world-set where nothing can be scientifically analyzed, it's bad, even my asshole bosses want none of that shit."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, no, what even. So how much freedom do we have within high magic space opera? And, uh, what is the deal with your magic system apart from the thing where some people can't learn it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Ah, the old familiar spiel. Years of retirement haven't done much to the memories. "Magic exists in magical creatures, including witches and wizards. All magical species other than humans have no non-magical members. Magical plants and animals use magic on instinct as part of their biology; intelligent species such as humans, goblins, merfolk, centaurs, etc can use it deliberately, albeit with different things coming easily to different species. Broadly, magic can transfigure objects and substances into other ones, conjure and vanish objects or substances, create temporary effects or attach semi-permanent ones to objects, locations, or people, produce potions that have effects when touched or consumed, and in cases of rare natural talent may be used to predict the future."

Permalink Mark Unread

"With a magic setting of High, non-magical humans are likely to be extremely rare. There has to be a monarchy--that part's non-negotiable regardless of tech or magic level--but aside from that, your leeway is basically 'anything that doesn't conflict with any of the mechanical choices.'"

Permalink Mark Unread

The Americans exchange a look. "Can it be a constitutional figurehead monarchy, or a monarchy where the king is elected or something?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It absolutely cannot be a constitutional figurehead monarchy. Election...is possible, within certain limitations, but having a strong hereditary aristocracy is non-negotiable."

Permalink Mark Unread

"So like, elections but only members of the nobility can run for monarch?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I must admit, my experience with nobility does not inspire much confidence in that plan."

Permalink Mark Unread

"The nobility is by default much better at its job than real nobility tends to be. I realize that this is less than maximally comforting."

Permalink Mark Unread

"How about the thing some fantasy stories have where there's a magical mechanism choosing the monarch and guaranteeing they don't suck too much? Does your magic system support that?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Magical discernment of underlying personality traits is possible, but a lost art. Perhaps with a larger population of wizards it could be rediscovered."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Speaking of discovering things, how old is this universe going to be? Because if it's going to spend billions of years working its way along through evolution and then thousands more working its way up the tech levels, we should make sure it's a good place to live even before it hits the space opera phase."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I can easily un-lose any lost arts. Such an artifact is entirely possible. As for the other question...are you familiar with the philosophical concept of 'Last Thursdayism?'"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I have a guess."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Me too."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh dear. I guess I should have realized that when you said we get to set the end results rather than the underlying physics. Is this the kind that comes with elaborate sets of fake evidence or can we just--let the universe be really young? Also is everyone else there going to be reincarnated people or what?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Elaborate sets of fake evidence is the default, but 'let the universe be really young' is in my ethics notes. By default everyone else is not reincarnated people but you can request that if you so choose."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What happens to people from our universe who don't get reincarnated? Do they just stay dead?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wizards have reason to believe that some part of a wizard's mind survives death. I don't know if muggles have a similar situation."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ghosts aside, you don't actually have an afterlife," she says apologetically. "I checked the resurrection stone and it doesn't actually produce actual dead people, just simulations based on the user's expectations. Sorry. I realize this is a huge disappointment."

Permalink Mark Unread

McGonagall is well practiced both with grief and with putting it off as long as there's work to be done. "In that case I see no reason our new world should not provide one for them."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Maybe not Hitler."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I mean, it's not like Hitler would remember his original life--wait, is everyone going to remember their original lives? Are we going to remember having this conversation?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"You are going to remember both this conversation and your original lives, unless you make choices that prohibit this. Anyone else who gets reincarnated will by default not."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I vote we give everyone their memories and exclude any historical evil dictators. Aaaaaand possibly also the historical Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha because that would make a huge mess. Even more of a mess than there suddenly being an afterlife would cause already."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, I rather think Riddle and Grindelwald would cause havoc in any incarnation. . . . What is bothering you, mister Banner?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Bruce looks up embarrassedly from staring at his own feet. "Uh. If everyone knows what's going on they're going to know that we designed the world and the responsibility is suddenly a lot scarier now that I realize it's going to happen to real people and I'm going to be accountable for it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It is a great responsibility, yes, but you cannot abdicate it. The three of us are the people available and it will only go better for you taking it seriously." 

Permalink Mark Unread

Bruce swallows and nods seriously. At least he doesn't have to do this alone; that would be awful.

Permalink Mark Unread

"You can't actually just say that everyone gets their memories back," the angel says, lips pressed together in annoyance. "My bosses have specifically prohibited this. You can include a mechanism by which someone can regain their memories, but it can't be so overwhelmingly convenient that there will be strong social pressure for everyone to do it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is it because it tends to cause a mess, with people pursuing their past lives' grudges and freaking out about their religions being false and stuff? Or is there some other reason?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Can we have the existence of past lives and of a mechanism for recovering memories be common knowledge even if you have to go on some kind of quest to actually get the memories?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes," she says to Bruce. To Margaret: "It's because the society of Villarosa is supposed to be set up how the world-creation team sets it up, not how a bunch of settlers from earth would decide to arrange everything."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, I guess you wouldn't want people trying to reorganize into their own countries and stuff. I guess I would be okay with a 'you can go on a quest to get your memories back' option."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Which leaves the question of how to set up a world that fits the other criteria while being known to be very young."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We could just tell the truth about the Will of the Multiverse. Unless they want to be secret from everyone but the three of us for some reason?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's not that it's a secret, it's that it...would be breaking the fourth wall?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"But it's going to be real life? I think I've lost track of how many levels of fake we're on."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What is the maximum amount of transparency this Will will accept?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I know that it's real life, and you know that it's real life, and in theory the Will knows that it's real life, but policy does not always reflect that. If you want to have some kind of legend that isn't, strictly speaking, wrong, just kind of vague, that's been known to work..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm all right with fake legends if they're technically true."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Technically true and not actively misleading in a way that will lead people to act unwisely."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I can definitely do that." She notes down relevant details. "It's been done before, the worldbuilding team is even capable of starting things a little early and having relevant legend features actually happen."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay. In that case . . . "

When life death gets weird, there's always Greg Egan fanfiction to lean on.

"I have a weird idea but hear me out. What if the legend is that an AI or aliens or something made a giant server--like a Dyson sphere or something--and filled it with a virtual world full of people and magic and stuff and then cleared out? Not the most false, makes it easy for Margaret to be an AI because in a virtual world you can have whatever body you want, there can be tons of stuff in the world that nobody needs to have built, and immortality is easy because if someone dies you can restart them from their last backup and they lose some memories but they're otherwise fine. And you can set the physics on the outer layer to just Not have the second law of thermodynamics so the star will never go out and the server will run forever!"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wouldn't you eventually run out of space--no, wait, you could have locality and slow it down arbitrarily and no-one would notice because there's nothing going on in sidereal time to compare it to. I love it!"

Permalink Mark Unread

"If that turns out to be within our design constraints I am going to want the idea of a virtual world explained in rather more detail. Is this similar to the muggle concept of 'MMOs'?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sort of, yes, but instead of sitting at a computer controlling a game character it's like you *are* the character, and the character's body is your body and all the other characters are also people. From the inside it's exactly like living in a universe that happens to have magic such that you come back when you die and stuff, there's just, like, another layer of wrapper around reality that's a star surrounded by a giant computer."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Goodness. I suppose if these 'universe molders' can create entire universes that wouldn't actually be harder."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Maybe we should show her The Matrix.

Permalink Mark Unread

"No we shouldn't, it's a bunch of bullpuckey. Ah, if any of you object to the swearing I can stop. Anyway, there shouldn't be any trouble loading your magic system into it or giving you a human body or anything. Is it within the rules?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, although it isn't, actually, true that there's nothing sidereal to compare it to," the angel says wryly. "Not if you ever want to interact with the wider multiverse."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh wow, that's an option? And it's not like Narnia time where the sidereal universes end up wildly out of sync with each other no matter what's going on up the stack?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"In that case the hardware should be continuously expanding to keep up with population; there's got to be some physics that supports enough computer even if it doesn't look like solar systems and stuff."

Permalink Mark Unread

(Bruce has a useless but amusing mental image of an infinite plane of algae implementing Conway's Game of Life implementing their planned universe.)

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes...hm. I'm not the most computer-expert, but--hm. Hmm...setting things up so abilities that result from computer physics transfer into sidereal universes would be tricky..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You mean we would lose our magic if we went elsewhere?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think we'd also need bodies, if you're saying there's some sort of matter transmission between universes instead of instantiating our minds in new bodies every time we traveled." Wouldn't a body running on one physics just cease to exist as organized matter if you tried to chuck it directly into another physics? Wouldn't it be so much easier to paste data hither and yon? Ah, what does he know about it, it's not like his previous beliefs predicted any of this.

Permalink Mark Unread

"If you run everything on a computer, then leaving the computer will make a lot of things stop working. Making things actually magic has a much higher compatibility rate. That doesn't mean everything will work everywhere, but nothing works everywhere. For example, the worlds where science doesn't work. Not much works there. They're not good." She has a deeply annoyed expression. "--Anyway, if you want to run on a computer," she tells Margaret, "I have every interest in enabling this, but I don't think it's a good idea to make everyone have to."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, no, it sounds like we want a regular world of human wizards and robots who ideally are also wizards. And vague legends about the world having been created when it was created and being the afterlife of another world."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I would be very curious whether a robot could have a magical core. If it had a soul, and you clearly do have a soul, and some sort of body that can hold accumulate magical energy and channel it into a wand . . . Ollivander would either have a fit or dance a jig."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Based on what I know about your magic system, it seems like it would be necessary or at least felicitous for magic to be involved in the construction, and/or magical materials incorporated in some way. But I fully expect it to be doable."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's probably at least some people who would build and enchant a kid rather than give birth to one if they were both options."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's certainly possible to animate various materials, including metal, and even imbue them with the power of speech and a limited intelligence. I think it should be possible to enchant, for example, a suit of armour to be able to support a soul."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think probably a form more optimized for being a body rather than around a body can be devised. Professor, in your expert opinion, as the magic system currently stands, would it be easier to enchant a construct to sapience, or to transfer a consciousness into one."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, a true constructed consciousness has never been achieved, and a transferred one has, but it involved exceedingly dark magic--and by all accounts the transferred consciousness was distorted."

Permalink Mark Unread

She consults her notes. "Is that this Horcrux thing?"

Permalink Mark Unread

She nods. "Specifically, Riddle's diary. The consciousness in the diary was able to remember, think, plan, and take control of human bodies."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Just to be totally clear: I am not interested in taking control of people!"

Permalink Mark Unread

"My notes say the Horcrux thing involves violently tearing a piece off of the soul," she says. "Surely transferring an intact soul would be less problematic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I would certainly expect so," she says emphatically.

Permalink Mark Unread

"'Some kind of magic method for getting a soul into an artifact' is probably enough of a start that we can move on to the next thing; I don't want to tie up the conversation forever and future choices could affect the details."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is there a time limit before which we have to make all the choices? You didn't mention one but I don't think we asked."

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, I was created to have vastly superhuman patience, and we're time-dilated. You have as long as you need."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank goodness. I could probably spend months fine-tuning this and I can't see a case for that not being a good idea, since I'll have to live with the consequences for approximately ever."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It does occur to me that if we have a world where no-one can die on accident, it should still be possible to cease to exist on purpose."

Permalink Mark Unread

". . . You have a point."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Maybe that takes another quest. Since we're doing quest-based mechanics anyway, and that doesn't seem to be the kind of thing one ought to be able to do on impulse."

Permalink Mark Unread

Nods all around. "After tech level and magic system, what's the next choice?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Those are the world choices...after that are the personal stylistic choices--hair style, hair color, and species. Please don't ask me to justify why hair color and style have such a big impact because I cannot. The hair color options are blonde, redhead, silver, 'brunette' and 'rainbow.' Blonde is the generic 'rich girl' hair color and won't have any side effects. 'Redhead' is as likely to denote hair that's actually red as orange. Red hair connotes and therefore produces stronger emotions and a little more physical strength. Silver hair--properly silver, not the white of old age--means a little less physical strength and a boost to intelligence, plus some extra magical potential or creativity and artistic talent. 'Brunette' actually means brown or black hair--where hair color options have a range of possible manifestations you can pick how you want it to come out--and represents the most common hair color, the 'everywoman' hair color. It'll make you a little more relatable and a little less agentic. 'Rainbow' hair means any unnatural hair colors not covered under one of the other options and increases the extent to which," she glances at McGonagall, "your new world is influenced by anime tropes. Anime is a muggle...I can't say it's a genre, it's too broad to be a genre, but it's a kind of muggle media."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I have ever watched an anime but that's a really big category, can we get some examples of what a world being affected by anime tropes cashes out to?" It would have to be really good to be better than silver hair, though.

Permalink Mark Unread

"I have actually not watched any anime and have several contradictory ideas of what the tropes are so yeah."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Tsundere. Beach episodes. Panty shots. Biologically implausible nosebleeds. Basically any kind of anime trope compatible with what the anime version of Roses of Villarosa would be like. There are a wide variety of contradictory anime tropes but you're not going to find people yelling for hours while their muscles bulge no matter how polychromatic and gravity-defying your hair is."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, no, that really doesn't sound worth passing up silver hair for."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Nope."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Indeed. So, silver hair for everyone; what's next?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Silver's overwhelmingly popular and for very good reason," she agrees. "Next is hairstyle. The 'drill hair' hairstyle is essentially an unrealistic level of ringlets, and grants the 'Ohohoho!' perk, which can generously be described as making you more intimidating. The 'hime cut' hairstyle is straight hair with bangs, a simple style that gives a narrative suggestion of hidden depths and grants them in the form of the 'Silk Hiding Steel' perk, which gives you a core of resilience in the face of shock or misfortune. The 'elaborate' hairstyle is whatever you want it to be, essentially, as long as what you want is something that looks like an enormous pain to achieve and maintain. You get a free Maid minion in order to help with that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I take it I will end up forgoing all of those benefits if I continue putting my hair in a bun?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Can I still get benefits if my hair is made of whatever magical construct bodies end up using for hair as long as it's shaped right?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Bruce is feeling massively conflicted. On the one hand, obviously if you're going to modify your brain on the advice of an alien while in the middle of getting reincarnated, "a core of resilience in the face of shock or misfortune" is an awesome modification to get. On the other hand, long hair and bangs would get in his face and that would be the worst. He keeps wanting to brush the mental image of his hair out of the mental image of his eyes.

Permalink Mark Unread

To McGonagall: "It's more complicated than that but you are essentially correct." To Margaret: "Yes, that's fine."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And the complications are?" She could get out of the habit of putting her hair in a bun for the right incentive, but it would be effort. She once woke up at three in the morning to the sound of her safehouse's wards being tripped, and within two minutes she had driven off the intruders and also her hair was in a bun with no memory of her having put it there.

Permalink Mark Unread

"What exactly does it mean to 'get a free Maid minion'?" That could be useful or awful or somewhere in between.

Permalink Mark Unread

"One at a time," she says, amused. To McGonagall: "Whichever hairstyle you say you choose, there will be a reasonably strong psychological default to have your hair that way. It's possible to override, but if the people who review your choices before implementing the world think you're likely to do so, they won't give you the benefits."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I see." It's going to be very weird and out of character to want to have her hair done in a complicated style by a maid, if she goes with that option, but once her memories come back it will all make sense.

Permalink Mark Unread

Potentially having his hairstyle preferences magically altered is objectively less important than having his psychological resilience magically altered but feels more invasive specifically because it's so gratuitous. But that's illogical and he should just man up woman up ghost up and take the hime cut. He'll wait for the queue to be empty first, though.

Permalink Mark Unread

To Margaret: "Minions are one of the other categories of mechanical choice; by default you all get to pick two. The Maid minion option in particular will ensure that one of your maids is especially competent, both in general and in a non-maid-related area of your choosing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. Because we're all going to start out with the kind of parents who hire maids, aren't we."

Permalink Mark Unread

This whole thing is like a seriously screwed up version of Rawls's "veil of ignorance" experiment.

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's less 'the kind of parents' and more 'the kind of social station,'" she points out. "But essentially yes."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, I shouldn't blame our parents, they won't be the ones who set this all up. It's just weird." 

Permalink Mark Unread

"It occurs to me that if we make it common knowledge that someone created the world and caused it to have a weirdly stratified social system, people are probably going to conclude that the upper classes were more ethical in their previous lives, because that's how people are."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Perhaps we could make that approximately true."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That bothers me and I'm kind of hoping it's computationally intractable even on a really simple heuristic of goodness but I can't actually construct an argument against it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think once people found out it would incentivize people being jerks to the poor even more than they would incidentally."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Unfortunately you may have a point; a more meritocratic distribution of resources would be beneficial but not worth making the overall situation worse."

Permalink Mark Unread

"In general the aristocracy in constructed Villarosa settings tends to be better at being aristocracy than would ordinarily fall out of regular aristocracy-causing factors, but it would probably be better to explicitly deny any connection between virtue in the past life and position in this one in the mythology," she agrees. "The nice thing about high fantasy space opera settings is that 'distribution of resources' often fails to be a thing; post-scarcity is convenient that way. Positional goods still exist, but don't tend to be anything really critical."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, post-scarcity will prevent a lot of awfulness. So will not having wars, if we set up the incentives so it never looks like a good idea to have wars. Actually immortality might do that all by itself; hard to have wars when your armies can't kill each other."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There are ways to wage war that don't require killing people, but anything that reduces the incentive would be a very good thing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Having only one polity would cut down on the opportunity to war a lot assuming you don't manage to spark a civil war; of course, it also limits your ability to scoop dead people."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Because it limits total population, or some other reason? Also how likely is it that our romantic drama will turn into a civil war, because that's worrying straight up and in its implications."

Permalink Mark Unread

"If it's just population, we could do some kind of multi-layered federalism thing, where there are a bunch of smaller governments under a world government?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"You can definitely do things like that to fit more people into one polity, but no matter how many clever polity-expanding tricks you come up with, you can still get more people by allowing more such polities," the angel points out. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Eliminating scarcity and making it easy for countries to expand will reduce the incentive for international wars, but it won't do anything about individuals who decide to conquer as much as they can. In fact, a system of multiple countries is likely to be more robust against such individuals."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And the more different governments there are the more incentive they all have to make their territories nice places to live, at least if people can move between them easily."

Permalink Mark Unread

"As it currently stands, your magic system has any number of fast transport mechanisms, and there's no reason to think they've invented all the ones that can be."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We--I mean me and Margaret--should probably read some books on this magic system so we know what it can do in more detail and can design everything else to work with it better."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Actually, would it be possible for us to practice with it while we're in stopped time? We're going to need to learn it eventually and you said we can take as long as we want. Um, assuming you don't mind the wait," she adds to McGonagall.

Permalink Mark Unread

"It would be no trouble at all. I can help you with the practical bits and do some reading of my own while you do yours. If you're able to produce a few exemplars of the Space Opera genre?"

Permalink Mark Unread

The angel produces three stacks of books; two of them Hogwarts textbooks, and one science fiction. She passes them out. 

Permalink Mark Unread

Then they will all test their host's inhuman patience for the next . . . somewhere between twelve and seventy-two hours; it's actually really hard to tell with no sun or sleep schedule or anything.

Margaret asks pronunciation questions and makes flashcards. Bruce gets a handle on magical theory and takes notes full of increasingly esoteric diagrams. McGonagall accumulates notes on which futuristic technologies will synergize well with her magic and help keep governments accountable to their people while mitigating the ability of individual dark wizards to wreak havoc. Easy identity verification that requires the knowledge and cooperation of the person whose identity is being verified, FTL that makes it difficult to blockade a system . . . 

Permalink Mark Unread

Being able to read about magic for as long as he wants with no sleep or bathroom breaks is the best thing. Maybe their new world should just not require those of anyone.

Permalink Mark Unread

Bruce is so right!

Eventually Margaret gets to the point where she can't really learn much more without a wand and joins McGonagall on tech planning. Uterine replicators yes, self-repairing ship shields yes, stealth fields probably not. Also unicorns and phoenixes and hippogriffs and dragons should totally exist. She's definitely including dragons in that list because of how useful their shed skins and so on are and not at all because they're extremely cool and she wants to be unkillable and then ride one.

Permalink Mark Unread

At some point Bruce runs out of purely theoretical physics sorcery thoughts and switches to figuring out a magical ecosystem that can work without anything sentient needing to eat anything else sentient.

And eventually--"Where were we, in the mechanical decisions list? I think we were talking about hairstyles?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, that's what was going on. I'm genuinely impressed you remembered that after this long," the angel says, amused. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"I have a lot of practice going on ridiculous tangents. Also I was hoping my subconscious would decide on a hairstyle while I was busy but apparently not. Can I see some pictures of hime cuts?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Bang length can vary," she adds helpfully. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Does it still count as a hime cut if I pull it back with one of those stretchy hair widgets so it doesn't get in my face? Or like a headband or something."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Your hair will be abnormally cooperative and not get in your face regardless."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's very cool. I'll go with the hime cut, then. Oh, quick question, will I lose the mental benefits if I have some sort of hair accident? If my secret weakness is getting glue dumped on my head I should be aware of that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You won't get some kind of hair accident," she says, amused, "but no, it doesn't work like that. The perk is yours once it's issued."

Permalink Mark Unread

"To be clear, I have no plans to get in a hair accident. I'm just expecting the unexpected because I'm apparently going to be set up for some kind of adversarial interaction with someone who thinks I'm a villainess and that's really outside my area of competence."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Can I get more explanation of the difference between having elaborate hair and a maid and having non-elaborate hair and a maid?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you mean between the Maid minion and an ordinary maid, or do you mean between getting the Maid minion from your hair versus another source."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I meant the first thing but now I'm curious about the second thing too."

Permalink Mark Unread

"A Maid minion is incredibly competent, extremely loyal, and highly talented in some area outside the purview of her job. The minion itself is not changed by source."

Permalink Mark Unread

Presumably by "it" the angel actually means the minion perk mechanic rather than the actual human being and she or her translation magic is just having a bit of trouble with pronoun antecedents.

"And those differences are determined by reincarnating different people into different circumstances such that my eventual parents hire someone else? Could you deliberately pick someone who would have been okay with it if you asked?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, these things are handled through personality compatibility selection. Someone who wouldn't be okay with it would be much less likely to be sufficiently loyal."

Permalink Mark Unread

"So it sounds like I could take elaborate hair without necessarily being a jerk? But the hime cut perk is awesome too . . . "

Permalink Mark Unread

"I will be taking Elaborate Hair myself. I wouldn't discount it; good help is exceedingly useful."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Very much so. Why would having maids make you a jerk?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"If I was causing someone to end up as my maid who would otherwise be, I don't know, a doctor or something, and would be mad about this if they knew about it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's not even slightly how this works," the angel assures her.

Permalink Mark Unread

"In that case I think I'll also go with elaborate hair, even though Silk Hiding Steel sounds cool."

She admits to herself, but not the others, that this is any amount influenced by wanting a beautiful work of art on her head. And by mental modifications she hasn't read detailed specs for being a bit unnerving even though that one is clearly beneficial.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Next is species. Uh...there's a standard terminology but it would interact weirdly with local magical culture so I'm just going to call the species 'baseline' and 'plus.' You can design what the baseline species is however you like, and then plus is like that but better along most convenient axes."

Permalink Mark Unread

Bruce is curious whether the term for one of the species is cognate with an unprintable word or an incantation or something, but that's super not the most important question here. 

"The way you phrased that I'm detecting, um, an infinite regress or something? I mean, any way in which the plus is more convenient than the baseline, we could just bake that into the baseline to start with, right? Also how does that stack with goblins and centaurs and merpeople? Are they all going to have two versions as well?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"No. You can just bake all the benefits into the baseline species, but if one of you picks plus there have to be at least two species such that one is basically a better version of the other."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It really doesn't sound like picking plus gets us anything, then? I think the centaur body plan is kind of neat but I'm worried I wouldn't fit in with their culture without it changing me a lot. I'm not really a living in the woods and not using technology kind of person."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think goblins are pretty cool but I don't know if I'd make a good goblin. Also, um, feel free to tell me I'm being super racist and should shut up, but I wonder if maybe we should put the giants on a different batch of planets from the rest of the species? They make really different use of space and have really different demography and I didn't see a lot of mutually beneficial interactions in the history books."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I have never spoken to a giant, but I expect that if they could understand the question at least some of them would be happy to have their own planets. I have spoken to centaurs, and they would unquestionably prefer to have their own planets and nothing to do with human governments."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, in that case I'm leaning goblin. I bet they would make awesome magical construct bodies."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What are we going to do about house-elves, though?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I have no idea. I have negative six ideas." Bruce looks plaintively at McGonagall.

Permalink Mark Unread

"I see no reason why they shouldn't have our world as an afterlife like everyone else. And stronger legal protections."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There isn't any reason anyone has to be the same species in the new universe," the angel points out, "which is good, because Wizards and magical non-humans are bizarrely interfertile and if we start putting species on different planets that's going to prevent some of the crosses that have, historically, happened, in your world."

Permalink Mark Unread

McGonagall looks Concerned. "If we don't keep everyone the same species, how will it be determined? Is there some method of surveying people apart from ourselves? And how much mental change would there be?"

(She is trying to imagine a house elf mind in a giant's body and vice versa, and mostly succeeding, and kind of wishing she had failed.)

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's...a complicated question...but--if I say that a median human would most likely end up as a median goblin, but still recognizably themselves to someone who understood both human and goblin psychology, would that answer your question?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"So a me who was a goblin would be about as weird for a goblin as I am for a human, and in the same, uh, directions?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"That implies rather a lot of distortion for some pairs and I continue to think there should be a strong default in favor of people keeping their original species. Present company excepted, of course, though I intend to remain human."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sure, a strong default wouldn't hedge out any hybrids that don't happen to happen in the new world. And I'm not sure having house-elves as a species that exists is ethical when we could instead not."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Were it a matter of creating new species I would agree with you, but I expect that if we could interview deceased house elves and ask how they wanted to be reborn, a supermajority would prefer to remain physically and mentally unchanged."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Based on my notes, they would probably also overwhelmingly prefer to end up with the reincarnations of the families they're currently bound to, regardless of how abusive those familes are."

Permalink Mark Unread

Bruce can imagine how much this would suck if he had to do this alone without anyone who had ever met a house elf.

Permalink Mark Unread

"I am--not entirely pessimistic--that stronger legal protections and a new set of social norms will help. Nonetheless, I am more willing to separate some elves from families they already won't remember than I am to alter their psychology."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What if we created a new species," she proposes, "psychologically similar to house elves in most ways, but somewhat more willing to stand up for themselves."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That would still be modifying people's minds in a way they would refuse, but at least after the modification they would probably be accepting of it. Nonetheless, it feels like crossing a line."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think--I mean, you're the expert here, I know that, but in the general case--sometimes you really do have to do things that feel wrong if they make people better off? I just wish we could talk to them . . . "

Permalink Mark Unread

"It seems relevant that we're already making everyone immortal and not needing to sleep without asking permission? Those aren't mental changes, as much, so it's definitely different, but I do think it can be okay to decide things for someone if they really can't decide for themselves because they aren't here. And to--do that based on your own ideas of what seems good."

Permalink Mark Unread

"But those are things people would pick if they had the option. Just because we can't know someone's preferences exactly doesn't mean we can just pretend they would be what's convenient for us instead of using our actual best guess."

Permalink Mark Unread

"But if we're wrong one way a bunch of people will get their minds modified in a way they won't remember ever being different and if we're wrong the other way a bunch of people will get beaten and abused! . . . I don't actually know which side that's an argument for."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There is another consideration. I have also met people who grew up with house elves, and while correlation does not imply causation, I do not think growing up expecting someone to obey one's every command is good for one's character."

Permalink Mark Unread

Margaret finds that pretty persuasive! It would be nice if she had found it persuasive out of high-minded concern for the moral health of society, but actually she just internalized that if there are house elves around in the new world she might end up in a house with one and she would really prefer Not That.

"That's--a good argument."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Would it help if the magic system provided a convenient way to alter one's own psychology, if one quested to recover ones memories and then wished to change anything about how their mind worked back to how it had been then, they could," the angel proposes. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"That would help a lot, yeah. I feel like--my real counterargument was imagining a house elf getting their memories back and being angry at me and wanting me to justify myself to their face and not being able to, and that gives them an option to fix it instead of just being justifiably mad."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, that sounds like an excellent solution." The ability to reshape reality to have fewer problems is very good and she's going to miss it. Though hopefully not very much because most of the problems will be solved already.

Permalink Mark Unread

The angel jots everything down. "Incidentally, the standard terminology is that Baseline is 'Human' and Plus is 'Elf.' The reasons for this have largely to do with Muggle literature, where things called 'elf' are usually very unlike House Elves."

Permalink Mark Unread

"How odd. Anyway, I believe we have resolved the matter of species to our satisfaction?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, I believe so. The next thing is also more personal to the three of you than impactful on the world at large, but also something you're going to have to come to a consensus on. There are three villainess 'roles;' the Royal Princess, the Duke's Daughter, and the Rich Heiress, and each of you has to take one of the three of those roles."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I call not it on being the princess," mutters Bruce a bit more audibly than he intended.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Are there differences not implied by the names?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"The Duke's Daughter is the only daughter of the most powerful non-royal noble in the kingdom, so if you want to have sisters you need to pick not her. The Rich Heiress is a commoner, which is usually implied by the name in contrast with the other two but not to every single person."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm an only child, but could I have my cousin Jennifer still be my cousin? She wasn't dead last time I checked but I don't know what all time is doing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is it important for something, that the Duke's Daughter not have any sisters?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It makes the Duke's Daughter's betrothal more important to her father's politics. You can keep your cousin if all three of you agree to delay starting the universe until she dies." 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is there a reason not to delay starting the universe? . . . If we have to spend all that time awake and waiting in here I might go crazy even with infinite books."