somnia's manga / #time go brr(24)

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.

85/ Hilise is the illegitimate child of the Inoaden family and lived through 7 lives, where she is killed by her own family and experiences betrayal over and over again. You know her family is absolute dogshit when one of the popular tags is "trashy stupid family" and so on. The story starts in her 8th (or 7th? somewhere around that) jump back into the past and is the point where she snaps and stops giving a damn about everyone and everything. Her main focus is to find a way to stop the constant time reversals while slapping away the obstacles which stand in her way. Honestly, the drama here is good. But I feel like the number of reincarnations it took for Hilise to get to this point is a bit too much. Either that or it would've been better not to have her just remember every detail of all lives right from the start. It makes her look like an idiot, and that kind of starts to infect the rest of the plot. I felt so much "Why did this have to happen?"-energy when reading some parts, just asking myself why the hell she wasn't able to at least semi-calmly gtfa from her family at an earlier point. Anyway, the drama here is good. I feel Season 1 Hilise is playing up the slay sis vibes more (and maybe she's a tad inconsistent) than the Hilise after that. Now her duality and the struggle to keep her heart closed and cold are clearly shown off. The lore and world building are also interesting, though most of the time all that just doesn't feel like this takes place in a... place, if that makes sense. I don't have a clue where their mansions are located, nor the King's Palace or this counsil archive thing I forgot the name of. We don't get to see what is where in relation to one another. It's very unnoticable while reading but to me, personally, it makes my reader's perspective feel even slimmer than it already is. It's a tad discomforting for me, not gonna lie. Other than that everything from her last7 or so lives to future events seem to be planned out really well, can't wait for future chapters.

So, the story is about Lippe and how she is yeeted back in time, to where she was a baby, after witnissing war and the destruction of her family. The first bit of the story is so interesting and pulls on your heartstrings real good. But then it slowly morphs into Lippe becoming an idol type of figure who focuses on introducing non-religious singing to ppl? At first she's like, only a model or whatever, and you're like "yea, I guess that's a good base to build up influence and stuff" and then you see her go on to starting her singing career and it turns into "wait, what about x, y and z thing that was/will be happening? There isn't even anything plot important happening (the most drastic thing is ML and her fluffing up to one another?), so why are we still here? This whole idol side quest or whatever just takes away from how emotional and serious the looming future will be- and when put into context with what already happened and what will probably happen, it feels so out of left field. Then there's occaisional moments where you question wth Lippe is even thinking lol- little errors of logic if u will, completely caused by this hyperfocus on her pop star quest. To be blunt: going from her witnissing the tradegy of war and the loss of all her loved ones, to basically grinding to become the first ever Brittney Spears, is way too random. Maybe some people can process it better, but for me it's just confusing af. Honestly, it just feels like a cheap way to fill the plot with irrelevant events, while baiting you with the well established mysteries from the first chapters. And to add onto my rant: Calliope is a total Mary Sue. At first her being so loved and slay made sense and pulled on my heart strings. After all she returned to the past with her adult mind in tact, to her loving family. But man, it gets so tiring and obvious with that whole singing thing. It feels like the author stopped caring about any established plot after the church and this cleansing thing is explained. "Hey, we got the basics down now, now start with the AU fanfic filler plot so we can rival One Piece's chapter sizes!" Honestly, the only reason why I'm not giving this 2 stars is because I have respect for the first chapters.

So far it's pretty good, just the sometimes wonky translated chapters can be hella confusing and throw me off tbh. It's also kinda annoying how FL and ML have to constantly tell each other and the readers that they're hot shit. I mean, they are, but I feel like a lot of content is wasted on just them talking away and playing useless mindgames while actual stuff could be happening. Also also: Personally, the title is kinda- how to say... -badly worded? At least I thought it's gonna center around FL pretending to be mad (and dunking on people with that or whatever), like the title says obviously, but as of now it seems to be more so just a single situation within a small time frame of the story which is basically entirely unrelated to the plot and will only minimally, if not even, impact the future events. Since this is only the beginning, later chapters might iron that out but as of now- that's my take on the whole shabam.

The beginning is kinda meh- it's your usual revenge story and the only thing that's driving you to read on is seeing MC beating up that one annoying character who betrayed her big time. Other than that I can't say it's all that good or outstanding tbh. There's little realism to the story, it feels surface level. It's especially noticable with the little timing errors here and there. An example from the first chapters: MC is laying on the floor, clearly looking sick af out of nowhere bc she was poisoned by her sister's cheap ass tiara - but the ceremony isn't even over and seems to be somehow just going on (and ending) while she is all woozy on the floor??? Also, after the time yeeting she's at the ceremony again but runs away... and when she's back after talking the ML over to her side, making a marriage/lover's contract, and dragging him along with a bunch of knights, the people from the venue and the sis are standing there like homegirl was gone for 2min..? Listen, I think the whole MC vc female family member or close friend stabbing them in the back drama so old already. This whole women being pitted against each other bs (in this case it more so perpetuates that kind of narrative/mindset ig) is really really old... unless you do it right, but I don't think this is it considering I didn't even realize that MC's sister was unaware of being seen through until they hugged, despite the title hinting that MC is trying to keep it lowkey. Don't get me started on all the other questions I have floating through my mind already, even though only like 16 chapters are out.