Discussion What turns you off about reoccurring plot lines in the otome/mob/villainess isekai related novels?

As well as second chance stories and anything related to it.

What are things in them you noticed are getting overdone since they are growing in numbers?

Mine would be making the original Heroine evil or rude for no reason when the narrative gave a different story in the original timeline.

Or have the ML be a complete jerk and even abusive/toxic to the MC only to make a poorly made redemption arc to justify being a deserving candidate. But sometimes that's not done at all and that's worse.

 

I think the re-accruing factor is one of the reason people read them... It’s call a genre..
Don’t get me wrong there are good novels and bad ones, but a constant bad thing... I don’t know.

 

The capture targets being the male equivalent of the vacuous females in xianxia harems in the way they are led around the nose by the setting's heroine, until, unsurprisingly, the protagonist (often the villainess) appears and unwittingly wins them over. That, and the fact that they all seem to fall into stereotypes characterized by the yandere, the puppy, the taciturn one, etc, than a more rounded personality type. As a male reader, I find this quite off-putting.

 

Well yeah, I guess it's a bit annoying that the original Heroine is basically never a nice person in actuality and the Villainess is almost always just a poor misunderstood girl that got frustrated and lashed out.


But I can't say that I've gotten tired of Villain/Villainess reincarnation plots, though admittedly I've mostly just read manwhas rather than novels so it might've not been as tiresome to read because of that reason.

 

Glorification of abuse. These series glorify abuse to infinity , whether its physical, mental or sexual.
Characters are abused whole lives, humilated and given a social death, raped multiple times over, have their children killed/taken away, have their families executed on false charges, have themselves executed

and in relife? Everything is daijobu cuz that one char who did it had SADSADPAST and he got 5 page redemption arc, So let us go ride suck him off again. And the poor evil bitch also had SADSADLIFE so she couldn't help but ruin others and murder people around.

fucking cringe authors

 

I mean I like the genre it's just that I get annoyed when they make the og heroine the antagonist without any explanation leaving a plot hole.

There was been examples of this done right where the heroine isn't evil and we see their flaws as a person which happens to make them unlikable or annoying.

Spoiler: Examples from WMMAP and MNSS

Jenny from WMMAP is a spin the the typical shoujo heroine character when people start to see her flaws as a person since things goes differently than the first timeline she is seen as a naive person.

Ibelin from Miss not so sidekick is used to being perfect when that's taken away she becomes unlikable and rude due to being used to being treated like a queen.

And so on[SPOILER/]

 

Heroines being evil is normally a trope... because thats how fuckin dumb otome heroines are in reality,They live in a bubble all through the game parts and everyone around them turns into a royal retard while in reality that couldnt even happen.
A male daring to go even in 2 feet of Crown/other prince fiance? or the one he chases skirt of?
Here we have dumb royal heirs chasing skirt with 3 other dicks as every other plot.

So moment the villainess plot kicks in and butterfly effect starts, everyone just realizes how fucking dumb they are.

Some take route of the bitch is also isekai'd, Some are two faced bitches from start. And some keep them nice - like Maria from Routes lead to doom, the girl from Pet of Antagonist.

Most of times they are just so dumb that reader and any sane person just views them as dafuq is wrong with this bish.

 

I think what bothers me most of the time is how the reincarnated person never realizes that when the rest of the story changes from their memories, the ending might have already become different. I mean, just by not bullying the heroine, the villainess will probably be able to avoid "destruction".

Though I suspect if you had a smart person reincarnate into a villainess story, it wouldn't be so interesting as a light novel. When your downfall is entirely your own fault and you get a second chance, it doesn't take a full-length novel to fix your mistakes. Maybe a short story.

 

Some points/pet peeves that bothers me about those Otome Isekai Novels are:

1. The original villainess was misunderstood and was somehow actually good. Can’t we actually get an evil person once in a while? This is why I like the Holy Grail of Eris so much, since the original villainess was rude and arrogant because of her power, but never went too far.
   
2. Making the original heroine evil. Can’t even deal with this, it’s so predictable now. And if they’re not evil, they become friends with the new ‘villainess’ who’s kind and caring. This also becomes a bored after a while. I just want something new.
   
3. The new ‘villainess’ somehow winning all of the original males that was supposed in love with the original heroine. Why can’t we have a new male protag huh? Or can’t they just be friends who help each other out?
   
4. Some protagonist think that somehow fate is impossible to go against and that since the original male protag is in love with the original heroine, no matter what the new ‘villainess’ do, they will never be able to obtain their love. This sickens me the most. You have already changed the route of the game! Why can’t you change the love interest affection as well? Stupid MC.
   
5. The new ‘villainess’ is always focused on avoiding the death route, but never about obtaining power or riches, or change the world, or bring forth a new economy. They just want to have a lazy life....Wait what? Why is your vision so narrow? This is why I like The Duke’s Daughter so much despite it touching number 2 and 3 of my pet peeves. She actually changes the world and establish herself a position.

But keep in mind that despite all my pet peeves, I still enjoy this genre a lot despite it being predictable and stale.

 

All of those things, but especially this! It's always the darn novel's heroine that was the evil one who set the villainess up because our villainess is actually a smart, talented, beautiful kind goddess who everyone should love because she's so super duper awesome.

 

My biggest gripe with these stories is when the plot too closely follows the original story that the mc is transported into, or the past that a second chance mc is returned to.
Often the author will only allow it to deviate from the original plot/timeline if the mc does something different, but logically mere chance should be enough for it to deviate even without the mc doing anything, for example someone can have an accident, miss an important appointment and then have the situation snowball from there.
I'm kinda tired of seeing protagonists like these being able to precisely know the exact time and day that a person will be present at a specific place, years in advance.
Basically it is the story deviating from the original plot/timeline that makes these stories interesting to me, but a lot of authors don't actually make use of it enough.

 

.. I mean 99% of these stories are setup in schools where the "villainess" is just a women trying to make a whorish bitch stay away from her man and other men who are already in relationships.

Honestly I love when few series I have take digs at these "heroines"
Heroines was epitome of pureness and kindness, So pure that they went thirsting over engaged men at every corner.

and their crimes? Bullying at best which is reacted with fuckin overreaction country exile/murder, the whole premises are pathetically dumb.
Only in villainess leads to doom, it shows the consequence a bit - with the prince getting exiled , because he frigging murders his fiance and daughter of high level nobility in public.

The rest are sheer dumb, the dumbass not even crown princes have gall to murder dukedom heirs in public and live with no consequences? What a retarded premises, Dukedom has enough power to eradicate a non crown prince down to earth or even remove a CP from his status.

And if any of these girls would be actually villainess, a duke heir could make baron/count heir/adopted child just evaporate in air b4 all shit.
These novels do use victorian hierarchy but fail to deliver any sort of social power those houses hold. The Dukes are de-facto royal families branches who can inherit the throne in any emergency and yet they are treated like some dumb knight house in these stories.
Rarely any story shows the proper house power and when they do, the story gets much better auto, because its no more dumbing of characters.

 

FACTS

 

Yeah honestly I'd love if more stories made us care for the MLs above their surface traits. I've seen a few, but not really enough in my eyes.


One I probably like the least is the "scum prince" antagonist archetype, mainly because it's just as overdone (and oftentimes paired with) the "stupid heroine" antagonist. Both of them are things I've seen most authors fall back on instead of say, writing characters with more interesting or complex backgrounds/motives. I've seen a few stories do this right mind you.

Not saying a story can't have these archetypes if it suits them or are done well. It Seems Like I Got Reincarnated Into The World of a Yandere Otome Game probably has one of my more favorite twists on this: the heroine is a total wildcard to the MC because her entire personality changes depending on the route. I found that a pretty interesting way to build up the heroine and while she wasn't necessarily an antagonist, she was still on the most dangerous route of the game.

 

Mine would be harem, reverse harem, anything harem related idk y its just a turn off personally for me. And when the MC is really dense or dumb or innocent. Also when the male lead is the crown prince it's just boring, they're too toxic and sometimes obsessive. And lastly when MC is too kind well liked by everyone, by everyone I mean everytime MC meet new people those people will like her too just like that somehow and they'll start worshiping MC.. I cringed when that happened

 

I don't really mind if the heroine turns out to be evil, but I do loathe it when the villainess is suddenly kind and caring, like if you remove those labels, they basically just traded spots and its so annoying because people hated the heroines for the same reason they like the villainesses now,
and it escalates my annoyance when all male interests switch to the villainess side because of it, like fock off


maybe its because I myself am a h03 for slice of life anime/manga that I don't mind their slacker dreams lmao, but I think the annoying thing about this might be because usually MCs who have this goal often have to escape a whole lot of red flags/ plot points to be saved, where they will need to acquire a lot of connections, power and wealth to succeed in like you already have those so why give all of it up


when the story portrays an mc to be TOO smart but then suddenly they are not, and it just brings everyone in trouble, I always metaphorically pop a vein when this happens

 

For me the thing I hate the most is that the politics of why that daughter was the fiancé are almost always completely ignored. Instead the Villainess's family almost always just tosses her aside, when they should be out for blood to defend their honor BEFORE the engagement cancelation, and the prince's father (and school) are almost always doing nothing to stop the scandal.

These stories always set precedencies that would destroy the fabric of their societies, as after this no one in their right mind would ever engage their daughter to the Prince, or any other form of alliance, since they would have to make pacts to set up the engagement and the crown has just established that those pacts will be tossed aside for the non-royal's detriment on a whim.

That and how common it is for the Villainess to have undergone years of serious training for their future position, to meet certain requirements for it, only for the Prince to discard her for the Heroine because the Villainess acts as appropriate for their station, and the Heroine is "pure" really meaning different and no where near the requirements their society places on a Queen. I mean the # of stories where "I hate you because you are not fun, even though you are not fun because you are filling your role in society, so I am going to ditch you for this girl who is incapable to fill that role" and they expect to be allowed to marry their little celibate tart with no issue.

Oh so this, in most series the villainess is acting well within social norms and protocols. Flirting with someone else's fiancé is an insult to that person, openly and publicly doing so even more so. They are almost always a society where insulting a noble of higher rank (and it is almost always a HIGH rank villainess, and LOW rank Heroine) would easily lead to duels of honor, or outright assassinations. Which makes the bullying actually kind. These stories should be scandal beyond belief, but that is almost never an issue for the Prince of Heroine, while the Villainess is treated as the evil lady for responding to the scandal.

Plus how often is the justification of that level of a punishment that she "abused" the prince's fiancé, when the Villainess was the fiancé and the Heroine the one insulting her first.

 

Sucking up to the people that treated them badly or that looked down on them for their personality. E.g. The rest of the family, sibling(usually male) or potential love interests hating the original body, I feel like the fl acts so try hard to act like a virgin Mary to reverse the image of being a villainess only for them to be like oh so you're not so bad after all after disregarding her all throughout. Well congrats on the self- esteem boost that you got knowing that you are better liked than the original body.

I just find it weird that it always ends up being that villainess just ends up with the same personality as the heroine in the end, just inadvertently stealing all the lines and opportunities from the heroine.

 

the fact that they're trying to change their destiny because of the "death flag" of the original otome/novel. most of the time original villainess are kinda obsessed with the ML then after transmigrating the "new" villainess will avoid the ML, then the ML will be like "interesting" and try to pester the "new" villainess.