T.Hallows

The lows in this story are rock fucking bottom and the highs right up in the clouds. It's insane, but I loved it. Gotta said so...that ending...feels like there should have been a few more chapters before it wrapped up like that. I would have really liked to see Ruan's family realize that they've lowkey treated him like shit. Like, obviously they love him, but never once did they really prioritise his wants or needs while expecting him to spend his entire life starting at age 8, devoted to a title he didn't even want beyond gaining the freedom to be with Cloden.

Shein in particular was wild to force his responsibilities on to this little brother and then scold him later on in the story for letting his intense longing and depression get in the way of his duties. I feel like they could have easily wrapped this up by having Shein willingly marry and try to provide an heir for the family in return for all the freedom he's had at Ruan's expense, like as his way of apologising, making amends and paying back a debt. Instead, we get a shit older brother who gets no recourse at all and seemingly feels zero remorse.

They also could have made progress with the parents actually putting Ruan's wants first and actually giving the butler his fucking credit for raising their whole ass child- something they openly acknowledge and yet don't seem particularly grateful for. That man was more of a father to Ruan than the Count ever was and his mother was less relevant than that. They clearly love him and yet willingly sent him away from everything he's ever known for 10 fucking years, disregard his feelings about literally everything and don't take his mental health seriously at all until man becomes an active flight risk, despite his erratic and obsessive behaviour being low key concerning from childhood. But none of this is ever fully explored.

And, of course, I think Cloden should have either willingly returned to the county or at least, we should have gotten clear dialogue that one day he will. Maybe while they're still dating, Cloden would prefer to remain with his family and then move in after their eventual marriage, when HE his ready. And, that would fit in nicely with Ruan learning to respect Cloden's boundaries and personal freedoms, allowing Cloden to decide on their timeline going forward rather than being so possessive. After all, Ruan has his love now and there's no need for the narrative to try and force them under the same roof anymore. Let's be real, the Count has another decade in him at the bare minimum, so Ruan and Cloden have plenty of time to do things naturally, rather than rush a wedding.

Instead of any of this, which wouldn't even take more than a few chapters given that this whole story is pretty rapid pace...we get and ending that barely even feels like one. Close, maybe. With a lot of loose ends. But even their relationship, the stories main fucking thing, didn't feel fully resolved at all.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. It's been a long fucking night.

Yeah. What can I say? There's just nothing really that special about this one. I did like that the Emperor was openly loving towards his son and not just his daughter like in so many of these stories, but you couldn't say it was a particularly deep relationship. Let's be real, most of the relationships simply weren't that deep or compelling. And like, 70% of the plot was boring and the conclusions were completely underwhelming. There was stuff happening at all times and yet there was really never any impact. All the details happen behind the scenes where we don't get the see them at all so when something is achieved like establishing the Fairy Mana charity thing, it doesn't make you actually feel anything cause we only saw like 10% of the work put into it. And if the FL was in danger, there was never any questioning that she wouldn't get out just fine, again, no impact, especially after her relationship with her father and brothers improve. And from there nothing changes between any of them for the rest of the 100+ chapters. The only interesting villain doesn't show up until the tail end and gets zero fleshing out and the FL is the only one who really gets any real character growth and even then it's completely predictable at every turn. She wasn't annoying or difficult to sympathise with or root for, she was just the same as 95% of the FL's in these stories. Unoriginal and uninteresting. She was the FL purely because interesting things happened TOO her, not because she was interesting herself.

For all my bitching, I didn't completely hate it, I'm just sick of these hollow stretched out plots with one dimensional characters