beta
i love this but it definitely did drag by chapter 80+. just skimmed through the epilogue just to be done with this, but isis def deserve her own story with king lohan since spoiler, she reincarnated as someone else.
aria, carin, and isis (bc she had a motivation that made sense and was a better villain than shallow btch mielle) def carried this story. unpopular, but i'm not a fan of the love interest, like he was just there, like an accessory to aria, or that he doesnt have much charisma and was completely overshadowed by her. they also dont have much chemistry to me, and oml those cheesy and cringeworthy lines they kept exchanging to each other. as the story progressed, he just became the jealous possessive bf type, also things went really easy for him (thanks to aria ofc, his struggle was like 5% to aria's 95%) so he's just really flat. maybe storytelling issue bc most of his screentime was just glazing her. (i skipped the epilogue but whatever).
i feel bad for cain, esp since he accepted his situation and was trying to change and help his father (compared to lameass mielle). his death def served a poetic purpose (which is to highlight how mielle killed all those who cared for her) but it didnt have a payoff bc mielle didnt feel neither remorse nor sadness when he died. like it wouldve been better if she wailed tf out bc she did that to herself (how she lead her family to their deaths), but nah she is stuck in delulu-land. so yeah, his death was just empty when it couldve been more impactful.
also, i didnt like how aria ended up having noble blood, which was probably just there to connect the dots on how she got her powers and to one-up both isis and mielle. like she kept criticking about classicism and nobility, and then ends up becoming a noble herself. like it wouldve been more powerful narratively if she was just a commoner and if her love interest wasnt the crown prince (bc whatever is his existence anyway but to one-up aria from the others and help her as if a genie when she's troubled, like wow how convenient), and if aristocracy was completely gone in the empire by the end. like the aria vs mielle court case over her pushing the count wouldve been interesting as aria finds a way to defend herself, but nah her prince would always save her. that's all for my rants (づ￣ ³￣)づ