"I hardly think," she snarks because snark is what is left to her in the total upending of everything she thought she knew and she is also completely out of brain to mouth filter, "that my first life was worth a story of its own - was it, really?  I didn't do anything!"

"I'm sure you..."  She glances down at a pad of paper suddenly appearing in her hand.  "Why yes, I have that you did survive infancy - thanks in part to good luck being born where and when you were - so in fact you did have a story.  How interesting the story was..."  She shrugs; she wouldn't dispute Alicia's opinion even if she did know.  "But that's something we can fix in your next one."

"...Okay, actually, yes, I have several stories about surviving infancy, as it happens, but damn, we are really pushing the limits of Sturgeon's Law to call the rest of it a story and not some loose tropes.  Anyway!  How's this...work, mysterious vaguely angelic figure?"

"How it works for you is..."

She throws out her wings and says cheerily, "You have been selected by the Will of the Multiverse in Council to reincarnate into a new world.  It will have a specific sort of story, and you have a specific role in the story, but you get to choose (within limits) what that new world will be like and many of the properties of the story.  If you wish, you will recover your memories once you're there, as a teenager - both of this conversation, and of your previous life."

She pauses and folds in her wings a little.

"Specifically, the story is... in terms that would be familiar to you... essentially, an otome game.  And your role will be as the villainess."

"...I am not actually familiar with the genre of otome games, dating sims being not really my forte whatsoever, but I am more familiar with the literary genre of 'oh no I reincarnated as a villainess in an "otome game"!!!!!!'; it's my understanding that actually most of the games proper don't have villains whatsoever - but I follow your meaning.  What...sort of world, though?"

"Whether the story will actually have a villain is up to you.  Well, mostly.  But you will have the role of the villain.  At least, you will start out with that role, and by default Fate will arrange to keep you in that role... and it will arrange to keep you the antagonist.

"As for the world, it will have a kingdom and nobility and marriage, and... there's always the chance that you'll pick something the Will of the Multiverse will veto, but essentially everything else is for you to arrange."

"...I'm sorry, what?"

"Arranging a universe?"  She grins and spreads out her wings again.  "Yes, we can do that!  As I said, congratulations!"

"...No, that was bloody obvious, what do you mean I have to be the designated antagonist."

"The story you're being sent in will have... retroactively had... a canonical version in which the person you're reincarnating into will have been the villain of the otome.  The Will of the Multiverse has decided this will probably make for a more interesting story."

She pauses.

"Fate will, by default, nudge things along that 'canonical' path.  And, by default, you'll remember reading or playing the 'canonical' path when you wake up with your current memories."

"...and if I...would rather not be on rails?"

"Oh, but they're loose and fun rails!  But you can choose to have Fate much more loose, if you take that perk."

"Well, jot that down, because really, I'm going to put in all this effort to build a world and then get locked on rails as a solo boss?  Nuh-uh.  Not doing that.  Running off to build a magic laboratory or death.  ...Okay I would also prefer not death.  Death is bad.  But anyway.  Let's get the building process started, I guess?  How detailed can I get with the worldbuilding?  If I have any input whatsoever."

Another pad of paper appears in her hands.

"You will be reincarnating into the Kingdom of Villarosa, soon to have been the setting of the famous otome Roses of Villarosa.  But you can define most anything about Villarosa you want...

"You won't have to relive being a baby or toddler; you'll recover your memories as a teenager..."

She pauses and flips through some pages.  "I suppose you'd rather leave your hair color till later...

"Ah, here.  All versions of Villarosa will be monarchies where the royalty holds real power, and have strong class distinctions.  Fortunately for you, you'll be starting on the winning side of the divide.  But what tech level would you want?  The options are Faux Medieval, Actual Pre-Modern, Early Modern, Industrial, Contemporary, Steampunk, Cyberpunk, or Space Opera.

"... and yes, unlike some people, 'contemporary' is actually contemporary for you.  Though we can of course vary it a few decades if you'd rather."

"...The answer to that depends on how much magic I can cram into her.  But really, who picks the setting they're from?  I guess if you're actually content with it, but...no."

"Some people do like it.  There was someone last week..."

flip, flip

"But yes, magic!  You can pick how much magic to have in any setting:  None, like your old world - in case you were wondering, I'm sorry, it didn't have any secret magic; Low, where it exists but it's exceedingly rare; Medium, where maybe several hundred people have it in the country; or High, where just about everyone has it and it's woven into the fabric of life."

"Absolutely high magic please and thank you."

"...You're secret magic that affected my old homeworld, magic reincarnation lady; that I have a continuity with whatever unknown substrate I'm running on right now is a surprise to me!  Unless I'm a fork.  I could be a fork.  Am I a fork?  Did I actually even, like, die?  Actually maybe you shouldn't tell me that, I will spend much longer than I should thinking about it.  Anyway.  Magic.  Magic, magic, magic.  How able are you to pluck things from my head?  Because I have some thoughts.  And I want to play with this system dammit I have been jonesing for a good opportunity for years and years!"

She doesn't actually know whether Alicia's forked or actually dead in her original world; that's not her department.  And she's rather happy she doesn't need to say it; that would spoil the effect.

"I know exactly what you mean there; I was wishing for the opportunity for ages myself... but generally it works better if you put it into words."

"Give me something better to do it with than spoken fucking word, I am bad at those.  Please."

She gestures, and a simple plain desk appears.  Then she thinks for a moment, and the desk shifts into a sturdier desk with ornate carved flowers over the legs and a brass lion's head on the drawer knob.  A loose-leaf sheaf of paper appears on top of the desk, with both an inkwell and a thoroughly modern pen.

"Here, and I can give you more if you ask.  How do you want to design your magic system?"

She has diagrams!

...She has frustrated whining at the human form for not allowing her to render what she wants to render at the level of detail she wants to render it, but she starts writing something down anyway.

There are six schools of magic.

This is a lie, however; there are twelve schools of magic.

This is a lie, too.

There's magics, and they are all - vectors of difference from the state the world is presently in.  There are also elements, and these are the building blocks of the world.

Except that that's not quite right either.

Eventually, a request is made for isometric graph paper.  This starts to produce something that might, at some point, start to make sense, if you squint.

Then she realizes that there's something she had not previously noticed about the nature of the magic she's trying to implement - which is, roughly, that it isn't just Life and Death as forces that are in some sense cyclical - and she just groans.  "I might need to use magic to design this magic.  I doubt that you have a holotank or whatever sitting around that works if I try to use it to design diagrams without having prior experience, and I really need at least three whole dimensions for this."

That said, she's still going to give it a try on paper.  Oddly enough, she picks up normal paper this time.

"Alright.  Let's start with the - I'm going to call them principles.  And I'm going to call them by the names you might see a human use, to start off with, but I feel like that's not actually an accurate summation.  So we've got -"

Six boxes.

ARCANE

FEL

LIGHT

VOID

LIFE

DEATH

She adds another, "virtual", 'arcane', because now that she's thinking about it, there's a pattern with how that's lined up too.

Next up.  The conceptual associations, and their - action words, she supposes.  This might be more complicated than she really wants it to be, but dammit, she's going to make this work.

Going down the chart in order...

ARCANE - ORDER - IMPOSE

Is shattered by | Resolves into a new

FEL - CHAOS - INVEIGLE

(FEL) Is directed to an end by:

LIGHT - PURPOSE - CONVINCE

Fulfils, but destroys | Provides, but corrodes

VOID - POSSIBILITY - ACCEPT

(VOID) Inspires new forms of:

LIFE - GROWTH - ADAPT

Survives, but causes | Fuels, being overgrown by

DEATH - STILLNESS - CONSUME

(DEATH) Is the natural end of: (ARCANE)

"Huh.  Wasn't expecting some of that, really.  Guess my subconscious is better at this than my conscious mind working alone.  ...I should see if there's something going the other direction..."

(LIFE|GROWTH) perpetuates (LIGHT|PURPOSE)

(LIGHT|PURPOSE) inspires (ARCANE|ORDER)

(ARCANE|ORDER) structures (LIFE|GROWTH)

"...And, hm, that's not the only combinations, so we also need..."

(FEL|CHAOS) invites (the) (VOID|POSSIBILITY)

(VOID|POSSIBILITY) awaits in (DEATH|STILLNESS)'s shadow

(DEATH|STILLNESS) cannot contain (FEL|CHAOS)

"...and the other ascending/descending pairs..."

(LIFE|GROWTH) surmounts (FEL|CHAOS),

(ARCANE|ORDER) constrains (VOID|POSSIBILITY)

(LIGHT|PURPOSE) survives even in (DEATH|STILLNESS).

"...Incidentally, I'm going to call Arcane, Life, and Light the 'ascending' magics, and Fel, Death, and Void the 'descending' magics, because - hmm.  Thinking of it from a physics and entropy perspective, it just...feels right?  That things where p is approaching 1 are 'ascending', versus, the opposite being not-that.  But I don't think that's necessarily a thing that holds universally.  Only the...text of the rules should, as contrasted with my developer commentary I'm telling you right now."

She pauses for a moment.

"I haven't even gotten into the elements, yet.  This is bloody difficult."

"...And really, Death should technically be an 'ascending' magic because it accumulates while Life spreads out, but I bet that's a raging debate!"