somnia's manga / #drama(121)

You could boil this down to just another one of those "I was an evil and desperate bitch who got what she deserved and yeeted back in time to not repeat my mistakes"-kind of shoujo manga. BuT I love the pasing and writing in this one. No one is depicted as some sort of evil cartoon villain, even if they're doing something that's obviously wrong or out of place. You have the choice to excuse their behaviour because you're familiar with their nature, or you can choose to hate them while praying that they take the L asap. Honestly, that was mainly aimed at Maryjun, she's the main center of my frustration. There's something annoying about characters who're just nonsensically "better" in every aspect, but also display super naive behaviour at the same time. I'd give this 5 stars if not for Violette's behaviour being so ??? at times. There are few times when all Violette had to do was pay attention and listen or respond, but for plot convenience she randomly either doesn't care or turns deaf, mute and blind all at once.

Our poor fl marries an idiot and irons out the issues in his territory as best as she can while he's drinking tea with his childhood friend. Really hope this is continued, I can't wait to see FL clean up the Duke's mansion and attitude, as well as showing these other bastards who's the real boss.

The pacing is nice, the art is really good and the story/worldbuilding is solid- like, you have no doubt this all takes place within the world of a girly otome game. I mean just look at some of the names lmao. I had to wheeze when I first read the ML's name. Like, it stays VERY true to a cliche japanese otome game from somewhere in the mid 2000's. Petals and sparkles everywhere, the kingdom(s) are basically glittering magic fairtale castle towns. When you see FL and ML being lovey dovey, it is the pinnacle of S-tier kitsch, especially when you recall them being like 14-15 years old. Have you ever seen a 14 year old boy proclaim their love and actually mean it in rl? Probably not, most 14 years olds are dumb and don't realize they are until they've had a few years of cringe and disappointments behind them. Honestly, their age kind of makes me uncomfortable sometimes. Like, I totally buy the og FL being 14 on both a mental and spiritual level since she is such a menace with minus 10 lightbulbs to her name, as well as FL because she is still so fucking insecure after being showered in her fiance's kisses for the 100th fucking time that day (that was a bit of a tangent) but with the rest it's like .