somnia's manga / #Romance(283)

/26 FL regressed to her youth, thanks to her daughter's magic. Having been in a kind but loveless marriage, her daughter's wish was to have FL be in a loving relationship this time around. That's pretty much it, the story's simple. Well, maybe besides FL's moral dilemma of whether or not to marry her previous husband again. Otherwise, it's just about her and ML, future Duke... Schd-something? Schderl?? getting cozy with each other. Just your average slow romance, with magic spice as a side dish and typical obstacles to fulfilling one's love. Anywho, shitting on the previous husband for being subpar is a turn-off for me. I get the whole spiel about not letting go of your standards and all, it's a message you can also take away from this, but honestly, it just feels like the author and characters are shitting on small men lmao. There are better ways to portray loveless marriages. That and FL's constant back and forth between 2 men, one of which she loves and the other she just wants to get her daughter out of, is making her look very vain and unlikeable. The author didn't consider that flip-flopping like that is a bad look as well, and no matter what she ends up doing there'll be ground to criticize her.

Def made for quick cliche snack. You stay for the drama and for the serotonin you get from witnissing FL and her boyfriend be lovey-dovey with each other. Typical ordinary-girl-possessed villainess business, the bad guys turn good, the heroine turns into a snake and they get into each others way bc yes. It's fast paced, and while the characters are pretty shallow, all of them still move around each other in interesting enough ways to keep you going. I personally got bored by FL and ML acting all romantic. They speak about whatever and throw in random lovey-dovey dialogue, and I just want them to tackle plot stuff instead of being stuck in a random place talking about their marriage plans, AGAIN.

Reading this up to like the halfway point was ok, but for the love of god this author does not know how to move their characters in a crisis. The writing gets really, really cheap after the Duchess goes rogue and basically becomes a terrorist. There is no suspense anymore, just the dumbassery of the main characters that outshines any challenge they're facing. They're all powerful people but can't manage to spy on their enemies, mobilize soldiers, research these sacred powers or look into the Duchess' past. And when they do find useful information it's disregarded if not ignored anyway. And then they have the balls to add some dumbass exposition priest to be like "we were all led here, this is fate". Stfu? Was a princess going out like a dumbass, when she was explicitly told to stay inside bc of a magic stealing witch, fate? How does that work? Did fate turn everyone into obedient little puppies that just run after the main villainess all of the sudden?

FL transmigrates into a noble lady character, experiencing the classic transmigration into a rofan novel cliche, only she doesn't know which one by virtue of having read too many and is desperately looking forward to making her rofan fantasies happen. Starts of kinda silly, honestly it's very embarrassing with how FL is constantly seeking some kinda role or romance to experience and failing miserably BUT it's only for a bit at the start. This gets really funny and also has some legit plot, this feels lowkey fresh too. Normally I can vaguely tell which direction this type of story will go in, but I have no idea here. Also also, it's really meta in a way. Like, (SPOILERS) she apparently has the power to make her wishes come true by virtue of being the mc, and yes true she literally is the mc.

Starts off really nice, but with each season the quality of the plot drops dramatically. The supposed end game ML is utter bs, their relationship and development is unsatisfying and littered with shallow, overdone plot points that artificially make them grow closer.

First Timeline: FL and ML(prince) do love each other, but due to the schemes of the saintess she's pushed out of the fiance position. Basically everyone but her and her bf think he's gonna marry the saintess when he gets back from tHe war, and FL has no rep or rank to counteract that misconception/manipulation. FL is framed for a crime she didn't commit, no doubt in a bit to get rid of her before the prince returns, so she chills in prison. ML comes back from his war, with no arm, and basically everything's gone to shit for them... and then the homie stabs his gf? Turns out there's reasons for that. 2nd timeline: She's back to being a child, in fact so are two other characters but I won't spoil here. ML is being weird this time around and so is this other Gideon guy who used to lick the saintess' boots in the og timeline. He's getting real cozy with FL now, I WONDER WHY. Anyway, I like the story on a surface level but there's a lack of communication on FL and ML's part. They should openly talk about wth to do and what is going on in their head but there's none of that. In a way it feels more like the plot is moving their actions and emotions like chess pieces to whatever drama we're heading towards. MC feels like a doormat at times, and specifically their trouble with jealous girlies feels so useless in the face of more concerning 'troublemakers'.

Mel Sloppy (PFFF) is taken to the Heaven Dukedom because the demented family head mistook her for his long lost daughter. She makes a deal with her "brother" Damian - or more like is threatened - to play the part of Bleria Heaven, the lost daughter, to preserve the Heaven family reputation. And so begins a chain of what you can already imagine is a whole lot of angst for FL over her position. Her new fiance (aka ML) is taking advantage of her insecurities, using the truth of her identity as leverage to make her his obedient "doll". SPOILERS: Just like the title says the "real" Bleria is gonna show up at some point. But turns out she's just another fake who was prepared by an enemy of ML, to mess with his succession plans. Bleria is basically the key to inheriting ML's family's duke title of Allnight (l cannot with these names). And while ML &co are kinda aware and sus of the new fake Bleria (while becoming colder towards Mel - woops I rolled my eyes on accident there), Mel is left in the dark and convinced that she's gonna be exposed/disposed of. She fakes the suicide with, I think, Damian's help? Not sure about the details there, sorry, but she doesn't actually die. ML seems to be very hated by novel readers, he certainly earns it because in the first half of the story he's gonna be exploiting FL. He's gonna be more in love with how useful she is at first and have a more twisted-ish affection for how he made her the "real thing". After she fake-dies he'll realize he really loved her though and it gonna be begging at her feet for foregiveness when he finds her alive and well. He's recycled garbage, basically. There's a lot of tropes here that if you can't write and portray them well it's gonna start feeling cheap. BUT WE SHALL SEE!

5/ With this one you read first before looking at the rating. There isn't much, but it looks very promising already to me. The theme is theming.