Alistair wakes up in a waiting room.

It's almost aggressively nondescript - in fact, the most notable thing about it might just be how empty it is. There's a wall across from the chair he's sitting in, with the phrase Reincarnation: your next metaphysical step written on it at eye level, and a closed door off to one side, and a water cooler in the corner opposite the closed door.

The door opens quietly, showing a person with hair the color of aquamarine and wheat-colored feathery wings on the other side.

"Alistair? Come on in."

What.

Did he die in his sleep.  

Apparently reincarnation is real! Hopefully this is good news.  He's sure his parents will be distressed when they figure out why he's not coming out of his room, but right this moment he can't actually be bothered to care about what his parents feel.  He sort of hopes they have the decency to feel bad.

He gets up and walks towards the apparent angel. (He didn't think those went with reincarnation.)

The angel smiles professionally as they let Alistair into their office.

It's obviously a room in the same style as the waiting room, but it's got hints of personality to it: a pale chartreuse accent wall, a desk with mostly-organized papers, folders, and binders on its surface, and a faint smell reminiscent of cilantro. The angel takes a seat at a chair designed to accommodate their wings and, if Alistair hasn't already done the same, gestures invitingly towards a chair designed without any specific wingy accommodations. They glance down at a sheet of paper before once again looking up with a smile.

"Welcome to the reincarnation office. It looks like you died in your sleep - overall, not the worst possibility, especially since that means we didn't need to blur any traumatic memories. Now, we've got a lot to go over and all the time in the world to do it in. If you've got any pressing questions, I'd be happy to hear them before we start."

He sits down, silent for a moment.

"What does it mean that I'm going to be resurrected?  Is it like Buddhism or whatever where it's like, a cycle and you get a better next life if you were virtuous or a worse one if you weren't, or is it just... another life?"

The angel grins.

"It's just another life, really. Most souls are processed pretty quickly, and either have their memories erased or not depending on whether their target world is cleared for that. Which actually segues really naturally into the topic at hand!"

They slide a folder over to Alistair. It's dark red, like - well, like the petals of a rose.

"Target world?  So I'm not going to be reincarnated as a baby on earth?  Do I get to choose the world?"

He pulls the folder the rest of the way and opens it up.

"In a sense, yes and no. The world itself has already been assigned, but since it hasn't been created yet, you get to choose some of the details, particularly as pertains to your own life."

The first page in the folder is a glossy advertisement with roses on it.

Congratulations! Despite the odds, you have been accepted to the prestigious Royal Academy of the Kingdom of Villarosa. While attending this academy, you will rub elbows with the nobility, gain the skills required to move up in life, and even find love. But beware! Your beau is already engaged to an underhanded villainess who will do everything in her power to maintain control over her betrothed. Can you beat the odds and foil her plans? Step into the world of The Roses of Villarosa to find out!

"Ah - you can ignore the 'villainess' part. You see, The Roses of Villarosa is a visual novel that doesn't actually exist yet, and you're going to reincarnate into the role of the antagonist. By default, the antagonist is a woman engaged to the man the female player character romances, but if you'd like, you can change the genders of those three roles."

The angel has done their required reading.

"A customizable world?  That's better than I could have imagined.  Do you create entire new worlds for people often?  Will the other people in the world be reincarnated too, or will they be new people?"  

He reads the brochure.  

"Oh, I get to be the villain?  Excellent! I will take you up on that genderswap, thank you.  At least for me, I don't know if I care about everyone else's gender?"

He's talking fairly fast at this point, clearly a little overexcited.

The angel laughs.

"Not often when compared to all the reincarnators our organization handles, but, well, this is my day job. It's a mix - there are new souls being created all the time, but there will certainly be several people in your new world who have lived before. Most of them won't have previous memories, though."

They're quietly pleased at his enthusiasm.

"All right; we can stick to the defaults for everyone else if you don't have a strong opinion. If you change your mind at some point, that's fine. None of the details are fully cemented until we send you off."

"And I will have my memories?  Do people reincarnate multiple times?"

He shakes his head slightly.

"Right! Custom world! What limitations are there?"

"It depends. Some worlds have afterlives or immortality mechanisms or both, so souls that land there typically stay put. But yes, most people's multiversal lifetimes pass through many different worlds."

The angel adjusts a lock of hair.

"So, the world basically needs to be able to support the events of the counterfactual Roses of Villarosa novel. World design isn't entirely freeform - you're given a set of options, but the options themselves are pretty open-ended as far as these things go. There are three main roles that you'll get to customize - yourself, your fiance, and your rival. By default, you'll regain memories of your past life and of this planning session at the beginning of the plot, as well as memories of the plot itself. During this plot, you attend the royal academy, your rival and fiance fall in love with each other, you try to stop this, and at the end of the plot you experience some sort of bad end. The memories you have of the plot can be in the form of having played the game, watched an adaptation, or of having experienced them. You can use these memories to try and avoid the plot events, such as your fiance calling off the engagement or your bad end punishment, but fate will be pushing the plot on you in the form of coincidences and, mm, incentives. Once you hit the bad end or the point where the bad end can't actually happen, fate will back off and you'll be free to live out the rest of your life - well, as long as you didn't choose Death as your bad end and get executed, of course."

"Alright! I expect I'll want to remember the story as if I'd played it.  Is there anything else it's important to cover before you start giving me my options?  I think you've answered all my major questions!"

Another smile.

"I think you've got the general shape of things! So, I like to start out with the bigger story and world options first - begin with the big picture and work inwards, you know? So the next page is going to describe the main options for the world and its… I call it flavor."

He'll flip to the next page! After reading the whole thing about 3 times, he'll look back up.

"I definitely want an Epic story.  I think Interstellar sounds like the best option.  I definitely want some magic, either medium or high.. it says I get to be a magic user by default in the high magic setting, can I be a magic user in a lower magic setting, and can I be a more powerful than normal magic user in the high magic setting?"

A hologram appears:

Genre: Epic

Time Period: Interstellar

Magic Level: Medium to High

"Yes, although at a Magic Level of Low or Medium you need to use an advantage to be a magic-user. You get four of those 'free,' by the way, as well as any that are granted by other choices. After the 'free' advantages, you need to balance out each new advantage with a drawback. There's also a special case, called Flexibility, where you get one 'free' use outside of the first four. We're already applying the free instance of Flexibility to your character's gender, so currently you still have four advantages open. Being a more powerful magic user than normal at a Magic Level of High is its own advantage."

"I think I'll go with high magic, and be more powerful than normal."

"Excellent, good to know. All right, did you have any further specifications for how you'd like the world to be? If you've got a magic system in mind, or things that you'd like the magic to be able to do easily, I can forward that input to the design crew."

He thinks for a little bit, and then answers.

"I want the magic system to be complicated, requiring years and years of study to fully understand, even if most people get by with just some.  I want there to be different types of magic, that all work a little bit differently.  I want immortality to be possible, but not easy.  I want the magic system to be the sort of thing you can have innate power in separate from spending years of study to master it.  I want there to be some sort of dark and forbidden magic." He pauses for a moment, and thinks again.

"This isn't to do with the magic system, but you asked for further specifications for how I want the world to be.  We're going for the interstellar time period, so I really really want there to be aliens."

The angel nods along.

"That definitely sounds doable - I can already think of several ways that being a Magical Prodigy would present: maybe you'll have a high level of innate power, or a more natural intuitive understanding of the complicated systems at play, or being able to cheat with the dark and forbidden magic. That dovetails nicely with one of the drawbacks, by the way - it's called Dark Secret, and 'is a practitioner of dark and forbidden magic' certainly qualifies. It's going to be pretty serious, something that you'll have to hide very well lest you face disastrous consequences, but I find that it's relatively appealing as a drawback for reincarnators who want to squeeze in an extra advantage."

They make a couple of notes.

"Aliens are definitely an option, and that actually segues into the question of Species. See, you can either have a world with one Species, or you can split the population into Baseline and Enhanced, which is - essentially what it sounds like. By default, the Baseline species is human and the Enhanced species is elves, but you can pick anything you'd like for either as long as they're roughly humanoid and can meaningfully be said to have hair and clothing. There needs to be something about the Enhanced species that's just plain better than the Baseline species - they can be stronger, more intelligent, more magical, more beautiful… I'm sure you get the picture. When we've got aliens in the mix, you can still select either option, we'd just need to workshop a bit. If you want there to be no species inequality, then the aliens can all have, mm, RPG-style balanced stats, so you'll have one species that's extremely intelligent but frail, another species that's strong but dumb, and so on. If you want there to be a division between Baseline and Enhanced, then you can either have there be only two species present in Villarosa, or you can do a version of the RPG stat balancing where there's a Baseline category and an Enhanced category."

Pause for breath.

"Mechanically speaking, if you opt for species equality, then you don't get any advantages or drawbacks. If you choose to be Baseline, you'll get an extra advantage, and if you choose to be Enhanced, you'll take an extra drawback. Also, most of the stuff about enforced balance or lack thereof only needs apply up to the point that the plot concludes, so if you'd like for the Star Kingdom of Villarosa to discover a wider world of aliens that don't necessarily fit into the plot restrictions once the plot ends, that can definitely be done."

"Okay, first thing, can I get a bit of paper and something to write on?"

After he gets the paper and pencil, he spends a little while scribbling on the paper and scratching things out, before speaking again.

"Alright. Let's go with Baseline and Enhanced, and I'll be one of the Enhanced species.  I like most of the species being mostly humanoid, but I want at least 1 or 2 weird rare aliens that aren't human at all.  I don't want to be one, I just want to know that out there in the kingdom there are some really weird, absolutely bizarre things.  If they have to be discovered after the main plot, that's alright.  I want to do RPG balancing with baseline vs enhanced categories, and I want to be an enhanced species who's thing compared to other enhanced species is intelligence.  Being enhanced requires me to take a drawback, instead of counting as one of my four free advantages?"

The paper, pencil, and clipboard appear at the same time as the angel nods.

"That's an interesting question - I've never been asked about the species substituting for an advantage or drawback before personally, although I'm sure someone in my department must have. I can forward the question to my supervisor, although my gut feeling is that they'll turn it down. They've got a certain sense of - fairness and balance. But they're not actually one of the more inflexible ones in the organization, so they might surprise me!"

Fiddle fiddle. 

"All right, I've put in the question. While we wait, do you want to move onto the Roles, or hammer out more details?"

"Lets move on to the Roles!  Unless you think I'm overlooking something important in terms of worldbuilding details."

Grin.

"Honestly, we don't require any amount of worldbuilding from reincarnators - our worldbuilding crews are good at both working under the guidelines you establish and at improvising. Plus, if something occurs to you later, you can definitely bring it up. On to Roles. As the villain, you're going to start out with a degree of relative social advantage, though the exact degree and kind is up to you. In order of descending priviilege, the Social Roles are Crown Prince, Noble's Son, and Incipient Heir. You've all got social weight to throw around, as well as something to gain from your engagement and something to lose if you fail at your goals."

The paper in his folder gives a little more detail, although obviously in a way that reflects the male version rather than the female version.

He spends a moment looking over the options, muttering quietly to himself as he does so.

"Not the Noble's Son, I don't want other people's plans relying on my social skills.... I don't think I want all eyes on me all the time like the Crown Prince, even though that would be tremendous future political power...."  he trails off in his muttering, before looking up from the paper and speaking to the angel again.

"I think I'll go with Incipient Heir."

"Okay! In addition to your Social Role, you've got a Story Role. The three options for this are Snake in the Grass, Bad Boy, and Mustache Twirler. The Snake in the Grass is someone who looks more innocent than they are, for whatever reason. He usually has a clean-shaven, almost babyfaced appearance. The Bad Boy is like the mirror version of that - someone who definitely comes off as intimidating, dominant, and rough. He can have a soft side, but he can also just be mean. There's loads of different appearance options for this one - you can have the long-haired look, the grizzled motorcycle jacket look, you name it. And then the Mustache Twirler is a classic villain - dramatic, upfront about being evil, may or may not literally have a mustache to twirl or a lapcat to pet as he ties damsels to train tracks or monologues about his plans. He's more likely to have facial hair, whether it's the aforementioned evil mustache or a goatee or whatnot."

"I'll go with the Bad Boy! I want long hair, and stubble that isn't quite a beard." He does not have to take this time thinking about this question, instead answering immediately.

"Excellent, excellent… Okay, our next role option is for your fiance. The male options are the Prince Charming, the Dark Rival, and the Noble Prodigy. The Prince Charming is earnest, sweet, and upstanding; the Dark Rival is, well, a bit of a dark rival to the Prince Charming - less earnest, more mean, though not truly cruel, more dangerous - and the Noble Prodigy is - mm, a little out of place, compared to the others? He's already graduated the Royal Academy you'll be attending and made somewhat of a name for himself. He'll be hardened from his past and reluctant to open up emotionally, at least at first. There are also female options, if you'd like to hear them - technically, the role genders all count as one thing for the purpose of Flexibility."

"Since it's not an extra cost, I wanna hear the female options before I make my choice."

"All right. The female options are similar enough to the male options - you've got Little Miss Sunshine, the Social Climber, and the Action Girl. Little Miss Sunshine is optimistic, friendly, and idealistic. The Social Climber is soft-hearted deep down, but has a determined, cool exterior. And the Action Girl is - well, it's all in the name, isn't it. You can have her be a distaff counterpart to the Noble Prodigy or you could have her be attending the Academy at the same time as you. If the incentives line up right, she may have a history of disguising herself as a man in order to be allowed into the military, but that's not a requirement."

It is time for the paper and pencil to come out again! Alistair spends a while scribbling out a pros and cons list, scratching out options, erasing and rewriting things, and so forth.  Eventually, he reaches a conclusion and sets his scribbling aside.

"I think I'll go with the Action Girl, and have her be in school at the same time as me."

"Great. Now we've got the options for your rival's Role, and honestly, they're pretty much the same between the male and female forms. There's the Poor Prince-or-Princess, the Hero's Daughter-or-Son, and the Extraordinary Commoner. The Poor Prince(ss) is - royalty, but not in a way that means they have any power. Maybe they're from a different kingdom, maybe they're the half-sibling of the Crown Prince but their mother was executed for treason, maybe there's some other equally compelling circumstance that keeps them from being able to inherit. The Hero's Daughter/Son was born to a common family, but their father or mother accomplished some heroic deed that posthumously elevated their whole family to a noble rank. And the Extraordinary Commoner is someone talented, clever, and determined enough to get into the Royal Academy on merit alone."

"I'll go with the Hero's Child... Let's say Hero's Son, even though I'm not actually attached to gender one way or the other."

Nod.

"Okay. There are a couple other characters to make decisions about: your trusted Allies! So, you get two to start with, but you can have more as many times as you want to take the advantage for it. The types are Servant, Butler, Classmates, Admirer, Animal Companion, and, since you've got an appropriate Time Period, Artificial Intelligence. They're all pretty much what they sound like. Your family will likely have multiple servants, but the Servant ally is yours: your age, loyal to you, and a cut above in skill, both in their actual job and in extracurriculars. The Butler works for your family, rather than for you - they're older, for one, and are more a source of advice and support than an instrument of your will. The Classmates are two people who mechanically function as one unit - they can be your ears and eyes when it comes to picking up gossip that people might not want to say in front of you, or in doing social maneuvering that it'd be suspicious for you to engage in personally. The Admirer is a classmate who carries a torch for you - unrequited, and they know it, but that doesn't stop them from being putty in your hands. Since your Villarosa is High magic, your Animal Companion can be either a particularly well-trained creature or nearly as intelligent as a person. And if artificial intelligence is common in your Villarosa, the Artificial Intelligence ally will be superior in some way."

The papers have more details. 

"I want an AI." He says immediately.  "As for my other ally..." he trails off, finding the relevant page and looking it over for a moment, occasionally scribbling on his paper.

"I think I want the Classmates for the second allies." he says eventually.

"Solid choice. Do you have any flavor preferences for the AI? By default it's like a fusion of the Butler, Maid, and Classmates - loyal to you, inclined to do your bidding but not overly servile, excellent at collecting information - but there's lots of directions you can go with it. You can also decide if you want it to be an upload or a true AI. As for the Classmates, those will by default be indebted to you in some way, but it can also be the case that you just charmed them with your natural leadership skills."

He takes a moment to think it over.

"I think I want the AI to be mostly a strategist, although I would appreciate some information retrieval ability.  And I want it to be sufficiently loyal to me that I never have to worry it will be turned against me by persuasion.  Indebted classmates are fine."

"Don't worry, while it is possible in theory to alienate any of the Allies, their personal loyalty is assured at the start of the story. All options are fond of you on top of any practical obligation such as employment. I'd say the Butler, Admirer, and Classmates are most likely to make decisions that displease you in some way, but it'll almost certainly be because of human error or them trying to protect you rather than a betrayal. And - hm, this is less of a guarantee, but they are allied with a villainous character, so while they can certainly have principles, typically they'll be aligned with your own, or less important to them than their relationship with you. Again, this applies less to the Butler, but - ah, I'm rambling."

Sheepish smile.

"Shall we move on to the matter of your Fate?"

"Yes, assuming that begins with an explanation of what, exactly, you mean by Fate."  He sounds distinctly concerned as he answers.

Nod.

"Fate is, in this case, the bad ending for your canonical counterpart's route. There are six options, the most severe of which earns an additional advantage and the least severe of which necessitates an additional drawback. There's a more detailed explanation on your paper."

Disgrace: The least severe option. You retain your rank and status, although your reputation is permanently in tatters. You probably won't be invited to rub shoulders with the upper crust, but you still have your money and title. Requires one extra drawback.

Nunhood: Yes, that's totally a word. After your fiance calls off the engagement, you are forced to stay in a convent and become a nun, taking vows of chastity, poverty, and service. 

Exile: Whether you're unceremoniously married off to a foreign noble in a last-ditch attempt for your parents and family to save face or simply shown the proverbial door, this Fate means you'll be banished from Villarosa, never to return to your homeland.

Poverty: As though it wasn't enough to simply lose a valuable engagement and watch your fiance marry somebody else, you lose your title and riches and are forced to work for a living starting from next to nothing. Although it's very much possible for you to make the best of this and have a happy, successful life, you'll never be rich or noble again.

Servitude: In addition to being stripped of your title and wealth, this Fate forces you into the service of your rival. This can range in severity from being a paid member of her staff to slavery, and much of your treatment at her hands will depend on her personal preference. Keep in mind that if your Villarosa has the right technology or magic, this may be used to ensure your obedience.

Death: Whether you're executed for your crimes, murdered by your rival or fiance, or suffer karmic retribution as the result of your own schemes, by choosing this Fate, you wind up dead at the conclusion of the story. Entitles you to one extra advantage.

"I think it's worth noting that you can't declaw the canonical versions of the Fates. I've seen some reincarnators set up their escape from the canonical timeline to have an event that superficially resembles the canonical Fate, but that's tricky. To use an example, while it's possible to set oneself up to temporarily die and then be revived, the actual Fate of Death means that you stay dead - any people you arranged to use resurrection magic will be convinced or forced not to, any artifacts you've set up to recapture your soul upon your death will fail, and attempts to revive you will fail. It'll be up to you to avert this. Does that make sense?"

He relaxes some as he listens.

"So, my Fate is what happens if my fiancee chooses the hero over me, but will be averted if I win.  I suppose that gives ample motivation to ensure I win, then."

He reads through the list, writes on his scratch paper for a moment, and then looks up at the angel.

"I'll go with exile, of the non-marrying variety."

"Okay, I think that of the purely mechanical choices, all that's left is your set of advantages and drawbacks. Remember, you get four advantages free - I've already marked you down as a Magical Prodigy and my supervisor approved substituting one of the free advantages for being an Enhanced species, so after two others you'll need to take drawbacks to balance them out."

The paper has a list that's a lot like this, although without Yuri Heroine and with less gendered language ("Goddess of Beauty" and "Feminine Wiles," for instance, are instead "Supremely Beautiful" and "Master of Seduction"). There's also Flexibility, which the angel described earlier, and something called Vending Machine:

By default, all non-you characters are either new souls or reincarnators selected for being able to fit well into the plot. With this advantage, you may pick any character, including but not limited to your fiance, your rival, your parents, and your Allies, and select any person, real or fictional, to fill their role. Real people will be drawn from the moment of their death, while fictional characters may be slightly different from the fictional version as they will be drawn from the closest matching universe to the canon you specify. This person won't retain their memories - ask your representative about past life recall options if you're interested. You may take this advantage more than once.

As far as drawbacks, there's no Patriarchy or Matriarchy option. The drawbacks Ditz, Jealousy, No Compromise, and Spoiled Rotten are absent as well, instead being replaced by one called Flawed Personality:

By default, your own personality is preserved as closely as possible. With this drawback, you can choose some sort of unappealing or otherwise undesirable trait, such as stubbornness, jealousy, bossiness, impatience, or anything else you think of, to be applied. Note that, while no personality trait is always a disadvantage, if you take this drawback, whatever trait you select will come back to bite you more often than not. You may take this drawback more than once.

There's also Wrong Genre Savvy:

Go back to the list of potential Genres and choose an option other than the one you picked, and your memories of this planning session and of The Roses of Villarosa's canon will reflect that new Genre. No matter how many times events contradict your memories, you'll be inclined to chalk the discrepancy up to having misremembered the events or something having failed to go according to plan.

He spends a while looking over the paper, taking notes and drawing diagrams as he goes.

"I definitely want Battlemaster, Bad For Her, Unearthly Instinct, and Silk Hiding Steel.  I'll take Dark Secret and In Character as flaws- unless In Character is much worse than it sounds."

He considers his page again.

"How would Save The World and Off The Rails interact?"

The angel thoughtfully laces their fingers.

"The compulsion to stay In Character doesn't directly affect your thoughts or force you to undertake specific actions, but there's still a lot it can do even without that. It acts mostly on Fate, and - it isn't quite the same as Ghost in the Flesh in that your canonical counterpart is literally inside your head with you, but it can certainly remind you how he would feel about things or what he'd be tempted to do in your stead. It can also make certain actions or inactions feel more difficult. On the plus side, it relaxes based on how alone you are - it's less prominent when you're with your trusted allies and absent entirely when you're completely alone. But, well, a lot of people who take this drawback experience a little of the 'fake it until you make it' principle."

As for the next question:

"Well, Save the World poses a threat - not necessarily to the world itself, although since you're in an Epic it's more likely to be on a massive scale, and Off the Rails means that it's much easier to divert events from the plotline, for better or for worse. So you might be able to kill or incapacitate your rival where in canon this would be nigh-impossible, and this could either allow you to take his stead as the hero of the conflict or it might doom your entire kingdom. Or any number of possibilities, of course."

"Oh! That's not as bad as I'd expected! I'll definitely take In Character.  How different from me is my canon counterpart, anyway?"

He hums thoughtfully, growing more serious as he looks over his notes again.

"How much of a disadvantage is it to lose the guidelines provided by knowing the plot, if I take Off The Rails?"

"Well, that's part of what we're deciding now. Obviously his childhood and background will be different, and he'll have to be the kind of person who could organically make the choices that support the plot, but for several reasons we don't want him to be so different that, if you weren't taking In-Character, people would suspect that you had gone insane or been possessed or something when you regained your memories and started acting more like yourself. It's not a strictly mechanical choice, but you can definitely decide details of the story so long as they don't contradict the required plot beats and how exactly your canonical self will slot into it."

The angel thinks for a moment.

"It depends. The knowledge of specific events and when they'll happen will be thrown off, of course, but most of the information about the world that you'd learn from knowing the plot will still be true. So - to take the plot of Star Wars as an example, you might divert the actual confrontation between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader at Cloud City, but Luke would continue to be Vader's son."

"I'll take Off The Rails and Save The World as well, I think.  As for what my canonical counterpart will be like... well, lets start with my Dark Secret."

He pauses for effect.

"My father is not merely a merchant, but the owner of the largest and wealthiest trading company in VIllarosa.  He did not start this company- ownership of it has been passed down through the family for generations.  All of this is well known- what is less well known is the source of our vast wealth.  The family has used dark magic to eliminate the competition and direct the minds of potential business partners, and even to cover up our involvement in the criminal underworld and trade of illegal goods.  There is an ancient family tome of dark magic, which has been passed down through the generations, and with my departure for school, this tome has been given to me.  If the tome is discovered and I was able to hide it's origins, I would be expelled from school and risk the dissolution of my engagement, but were it linked to my family and the means by which our wealth was gained discovered, the company would be dissolved, my father put away in prison for life, and my mother and I would both be left destitute."

"Speaking of my engagement- I understand the personality archetype my fiancee has, but is her background pre-determined?"

The angel nods along.

"That works well, especially since there are multiple failure modes associated with it. And no - you mentioned you wanted her to be roughly your age instead of having already graduated the Royal Academy, so there's that, but if you've got ideas I can certainly pass them along."

He considers for a moment.

"She is, actually, a noble- the third child of a Duke, who's duchy is a prosperous and beautiful planet.  The engagement was set up in large part to solidify a deal between her father and mine, though we knew each other prior to the engagement and like each other- she's not looking for a way out of it.  Being the third child may lessen her political influence, but it meant her parents gave her more free reign, and she's been getting weapons and combat training since she first started showing an interest, and has recently been allowed to go on unsupervised adventures across her home planet, at least one of which I accompanied her on."

He looks over the notes and papers in front of him.

"Bad For Her, Good For You lets me choose the hero's bad ending, from the same set of options as my own bad ending, right?"

"Okay. You'll want to keep in mind that regardless of how much your fiancée likes you as a person, she's still going to, or at least highly likely to, fall in love with your rival. And we can't push her regard for you all the way to romantic love at the start of the plot without you taking the associated advantage. But ensuring that you know each other well is smart."

The angel beams.

"I was just about to get to that! So, yes, you can choose any of the Fates to subject the hero to, with the exception of Disgrace. I'm honestly not sure why - my best guess is that he simply has less to lose than you do, but it might also be that Disgrace is the least damaging of the Fates and the anticipation is that most people who would choose this advantage in the first place aren't interested in that."

"Oh, I know, I just figured that it would be easier to keep someone engaged to me if she only wants to leave for the other guy than if she was actively looking for a way out of the engagement." he replies.

"As for the Hero's fate, let's go with Servitude."  This is a much less nice smile than his previous smiles!

"Understandable."

Note, note.

"Okay, do you have any specific thoughts on what that'll entail, and whether you're inclined to use magic or technology to enforce obedience?"

"There exist electrical shock collars, used in high-security prisons and the illegal slave trade, which I could acquire if i wanted, but there is also dark magic which can do mind control or compel action.  In the game, my canon counterpart uses the dark magic option if the player loses.  The hero starts out as a personal manservant, but as his personality and loyalty are magically altered, he eventually becomes a highly trusted servant who can be sent out throughout Villarosa to do my bidding."

"Excellent, excellent. Now, let's just review everything:"

Genre: Epic

Time Period: Interstellar

Magic Level: High

Species: Enhanced

Flexibility: Male, Female Fiancée, Male Rival

Social Role: Incipient Heir

Story Role: Bad Boy

Fiancée: Action Girl

Rival: Hero's Son

Allies: AI, Companions

Fate: Exile

Advantages: Magical Prodigy; Battlemaster; Bad For Him, Good For You (Servitude); Uncanny Insight; Silk Hiding Steel; Off The Rails

Drawbacks: Dark Secret; In-Character; Save The World

"Anything that springs to mind?"

He looks over the summary.

"Is 'Companions' another term for classmates?" he asks. "Other than that everything looks good to me!"

"… That was a typo, actually!"

Said typo edits itself. At the same time, a small cotlike bed appears, the kind that you'd see in a school nurse's office but with soft sheets rather than vinyl and paper. It's got a pillow, but no blankets.

"If that's everything, then I think we're ready to begin! Just as a recap - we'll suppress memories of your last life and of this preparatory meeting for the duration of your childhood, then uncover the memories while you're sleeping or unconscious - usually reincarnators wake up on an otherwise ordinary day with all their memories, but sometimes it's more opportune to slot them in when you've dozed off in class or hit your head - don't worry, if that happens you won't suffer any actual brain damage. Because of this, a lot of reincarnators find it helpful to lie down and shut their eyes before we send them off - makes the transition smoother, in a way. You can take all the time you need to mentally prepare - I'll take it as a signal if you lie down or if you tell me verbally."

"Alright!" He walks over to the cot, looks at it consideringly for a moment, and then lays down on his side with his eyes closed.