I can understand regression but we cannot pinpoint when it happened as it was too rapid and underdeveloped. No way is her mental age 40+ lmao
The thing is, it would be easy for the story to take some time to address the inconsistency as regression if let’s say cosette notices that she is more childish and reacts the way a teen would in situations because I think you would notice if you were acting “unreasonable” after a while... or even cosette saying “I want to enjoy being a teenager instead of being an old person stuck in a kid’s body” something along those lines
but they just kind of handwave it as “oh look, she used to be a housewife who knows the setting of this world from her teenage daughter and now she’s a blushing, oblivious teenager!” and the whiplash from that is painful lol
So it’s honestly just lazy storytelling because her being an ex-housewife is only used to sell the story as interesting. but we all know after reading it that it’s just on the surface and nothing really comes from it - it doesn’t make us root for her or relate with her and all it accomplishes is make everyone uncomfortable lmao
I mean, she is working with a teenage body after all. The software doesn't matter much if the hardware is not working properly. Aka, she's having to deal with teenage hormones again plus a brain that hasn't finished cooking
I mean that’s a fair assessment but from a storytelling pov, if the reader has to do some heavy guesswork/assumption about the character inconsistency rather than it being said/addressed etc in the story then it doesn’t work though that’s just my opinion
The setting for cosette to be a housewife in her previous life is so wasted because her character is seriously inconsistent... she acts like a teen with the occasional mom joke or mom empathy but not with the actual experiences, maturity and emotions of one...
the only time it was really important was when they used it as set up for the “housewife slippers” joke in the beginning and the mental age difference when they were kids but then she is basically the same as them when they reach their teens lol