Where can I read the novel, if you don't mind me asking?
I read the novel on syosetu, which is the official site where the authors post it themselves. (Syosetu is like Ao3 in accessibility, except it's all original series, and these stories actually get published if they do well enough.)
So it's a Japanese site, but the MTL is perfectly understandable. The link is here: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n0481hq/
Thank you for the Spoilers.
Have you found out why the Bio Mom hates her own Daughter so much?
And I would love to see the Negectful Dad of the FL suffering some consequences.
But that's unlikely because Shit Fathers barely
Sorry, I accidentally posted before finishing my sentence.
But that's unlikely to happen because Shit Fathers barely face severe punishment in this genre.
It is so much easier for OI Rofan authors to make evil female characters suffer for their crimes than male assholes.
do people find out that the past fl isnt actually a villainous?
Okay, so it looks like the reason the mother hates the brother and the FL is partly because of who their father is. She was arranged to marry the future Duke of Robourg, and the oldest son and heir was Sienna's father, but he went and eloped with a commoner (which she considered a severe insult). So she had to marry the younger son, the FL's father. That's why she doesn't love the brother or the FL.
But the reason she hates the FL is because of who she resembles. The brother inherited his paternal grandfather's looks (which mom wanted), but the FL took after her paternal grandmother, who her maternal grandmother hated (which leads to her maternal grandmother and mother becoming estranged). So the FL "became the symbol of all her failures that prevented her from living a perfect life." And the grudge grew when her attacking the FL with magic got her magic sealed away.
Of course, Sienna ended up making that hatred worse with how she talked badly about the FL.
Also, the father isn't a bad guy. He just has no relationship with anyone in the family. I think I said before that he's the head of the magic division, so he has a lot of responsibilities and barely ever goes home. I think that if his brother never eloped, he wouldn't even have gotten married. He's a complete magic enthusiast.
Right now (as of Part Three), the only thing that's been revealed is the FL's relationship with the sacred beasts. Apparently, her father noticed a strong power emanating from the FL when she was still in the womb, and saw the fox sacred beast talking to her while the mother was sleeping. The father and the first prince also noticed that the FL kept her past life's baptismal name (it was revealed when she was making a contract with a newborn sacred beast) so they know, but they haven't talked about it yet.
Speaking of the FL's past life, apparently the King, Queen and the four Dukes are all aware that the "evil Queen" (FL's past life) wasn't actually evil. It reads like their predecessors might have been trying to protect her, but the FL says that someone (don't know who) betrayed her. No idea what actually happened there, though; I'm still just skimming alternate POVs and it's definitely info that would come up in the FL's POV.
So, I was curious about this story, so I hunted down the novel it's based on. It's interesting, but the FL's POV chapters aren't written in a linear fashion, so it's actually easier to follow the plot if you read the other characters' POVs. ╮(￣▽￣)╭
I'm currently at chapter 107 of the current 631 chapters, and the older brother is my favorite, I hope he stays a POV all the way until the end. (づ￣ ³￣)づ
Now, I just have to tell you why I love him, because there's no way that the manga will do it justice!
So, their mother (yes, she's their biological mother) is an abusive monster to the FL, and has been abusing her practically from birth. So the brother gets worried about her and learns healing magic from his father to keep her safe. Note that people usually learn combat magic first, because it's easier. Also, their father is at the top of the mage guild, so he's basically never home--he only comes home a day or two out of the month--but brother bothers his super-busy dad until he personally teaches his son healing magic.
This is important, because the day that the FL and the prince become engaged, she baits him into banishing her from the palace (so she won't have to attend princess lessons). When mom finds out, she literally tries to *kill the FL* with magic, and the brother barely manages to save her life with the healing magic he's barely learned (the mother fired the duchy's healer literally a week before, because he tried to stop her abusive behavior). The father ends up permanently sealing the mother's magic and put her on house arrest for a month, but the duchy basically swept everything under a rug.
The brother ends up getting control of the FL's education, because he knows that their mother will just use education as an excuse to hurt the FL, but of course the FL is an expert at running away, and he can never catch her. Then a little bit after that, their cousin Sienna is orphaned and gets adopted as their little sister, and the brother gets her educated, too.
Sienna gets jealous because the FL can just do what she wants, but Sienna has to study hard for anyone to look past her mother's common blood, which leads to her whole smear campaign against the FL. The brother ends up believing something Sienna said, and decides to punish the FL by banishing her to the annex. (The annex was a cabin his grandparents had built as a place to get away and relax, and brother and FL both vacationed there with his grandparents as small children). He meant it just to be for a day or two, but their mother and Sienna take advantage of the command and force the FL to stay there permanently, and just harrass her repeatedly where brother won't find out (the servants even gaslight him, claiming that FL returned to the mansion and is perfectly fine).
The year FL and Sienna are supposed to go to school, the brother buys them a carriage specifically for them to go to school together, but somehow Sienna is the only one who uses it and the FL has to walk to school. (The brother is the head of the student council, so again, he doesn't know, and Sienna lies constantly so he's too angry to seek the FL out.)
STILL, he's absolutely livid that the prince his sister's engaged to keeps trash talking her, and he repeatedly refuses to become the prince's future aide, because the prince is garbage in his eyes. The only reason he doesn't protest to the Actual Royal Family is because the FL talked to the teachers about how she doesn't care about being talked badly about so long as the abuse is only verbal, and she actually takes care of the prince and *his entire entourage* so their verbal abuse is treated as a joke.
The scene where the prince actually hurt her was actually worse in the novel, because there were students and at least three teachers (including the prince's homeroom teacher) watching, and the FL got permission from the TEACHER to go to the infirmary, not the prince. The teacher actually sat the prince down and spelled out what a horrible person he was, pointing out that he was following in the footsteps of the villainous princess (the FL's past life), and reported everything to the king and queen, and the queen was ABSOLUTELY LIVID. Which basically guilted the prince into *actually reading the reports* about the FL's behavior instead of blindly repeating everything Sienna said, and he actually confronts the brother over the FL's banishment to the annex. Meanwhile, the brother's like "What hut?? It's my grandparents' cabin, it's nice there?? What do you mean she's living there without any servants??" And the brother talks the prince into letting him read the report, too, and he's upset because everything Sienna told him was a lie.
Of course, brother talks to Sienna about the carriage, and she turns it into a whole drama to make the FL look bad in front of the entire student council and her entourage. (Note that he brought it up privately first, in the empty student council room, and was going to drop it when the student council members started to show up for their meeting, but Sienna saw an opportunity to look like a victim and went for it.)
Brother warns everyone about insulting a direct member of a ducal family and fiancée of a prince, and then goes to talk to the FL about literally everything, but she blows him off and he loses his temper and actually hits her. (I'm sorry, baby, physical abuse is hereditary, and your mother's a monster.) BUT unlike the prince, he immediately freaks out, picks her up and carries her to a chair and heals her and apologizes repeatedly, and immediately agrees to pay compensation, and repair the annex and personally enchant it with anti-theft wards. He even gives her a room on his floor of the mansion (where the heir stays), because it's a place full of people loyal to him so his mother can't use the servants to harrass her, and Senna won't be able to get in easily, and of course, her things won't get stolen.
And even then, brother is fully aware that he messed up, and his believing Sienna all this time has done serious damage to their relationship that will take him a long time to make up for.
But yeah, all that just happened in Part One of the novel, starting Part Two now and looking forward to all his POV chapters. ლ(´ڡ`ლ)