Mary Sue is a plague that spread over the world. Fuck her and the novels she appears in. You have a good shoujo novel that starts off nice, maybe the MC reincarnated into an Otome world or ancient China. She kicks ass a few times, and it's fun to read. BUT The guy comes in. Hot and sexy, yet cold and indifferent at the same time. Approaching 7' tall and has the muscles of god. CEO and does deskwork all day? Don't matter. He still has a god bod. Literally not even a person. No character either, other than "cold and indifferent to everyone but the mc" Sure, it's fine. I don't really care if the MC falls in love with the perfect human. That only makes sense. The thing is that the MC loses her personality in front of the male. They eventually get together through a miracle of god/the author (after all, what perfect human would settle for anyone but themselves, they'd never choose the MC that is meh compared to the other hotties they've seen) and fall in love. Well the male does, but the female is like "nah im in love but not really" and the male has to basically rape her. And since their together, the MC has no personality anymore. Like, she still kicks ass, but the male kicks ass for her more often. And then some more half-rape. The narration usually devolves into pure flattery of the MC and the Male Lead. It ends up with the same Mary Sue character, a perfect woman that may or may not be pretty but her aura just makes everyone fall in love with her except for the antagonists (mostly the horde of ladies that love the ML), and the sexy cold handsome tall strong OP ML that only has eyes for the MC. What happened to the MC's personality? Character development where? Could there be any real conflict that the OP ML can't handle? There are a few novels that don't do this, and they're favorites of mine. My Disciple Died Yet Again and My Sister the Heroine are both great. I just wish there were more.
Oh yeah, before I forget, I need to shamelessly advertise! (else quite a few people will be disappointed) Read at Ebisu Translations! We have a new novel, Battle Over Giving Up the Throne! It's a novel that's completely different from all the repetitive isekais and xianxias, a comedy of all things. There are four Imperial Children, but "only idiots would become the Emperor" is a shared sentiment among them. So, we have the battle over who doesn't become Emperor. It's the top comedy novel on syosetu.com this year for a reason.
You've clearly never read Ensign Sue Must Die. The MC is literally named, Mary Amethyst Star Enoby Aiko Archer Picard Janeway Sue. The setting is a Sar Trek fanfiction web comic and follows the live of her and her beloved captain. I totally recommend everyone read it~ http://interrobangstudios.com/comics-display.php?strip_id=989
Was expecting some originality (read: entertainment) from the shameless advertiser's advertisement post, but turns out it's just another of those umpteen rants littering the forum, about OP FMCs who go weak at the knees 4 even more OP MLs. *disappointed* *expectations betrayed*
I think it's fine to complain, complaing proves that you care after all. Though I would like to add that I think the exact same thing can be just as annoying when flipped on its head, the problem isn't really whether or not it's a female MC and a male romantic interrest, it's just as annoying when it's a guy with a girl. Is it so unreasonable to want stories with good and interresting characters I sometimes wonder?
I agree! Usually it's not as present in male MC as the male MC had a cookie-cutter personality from the start, so there's not much to lose. But harem members losing personality after entering the harem is a sin.
Indeed, it's not even that I dislike harems, I just dislike boring uninterresting and sh***y harems (the majority), if the characters are given depth and personality I can even find it quite enjoyable. But just wish fulfillment harems are a travesty. Sadly many of the the stories that get translated are the wish-fulfillment type, rather than a just good story with good characters, and interresting plotlines. Most people don't have patience for stories which aren't just one wish-fulfilling situation after the next, but I for one find myself just tired out by it, and bored to tears.
Preach, sister! (You are a sister, right?) I've been saying the same thing for years now, except you've gotten quite farther than me in this rabbit hole. I would gladly recommend you these 3 novels I found that handles, avoids, or even use this stupid ML trope wonderfully. First off, <Ascending, Do Not Disturb>, a cultivation novel with a Female MC that actually has romance only after everything is all well-established and set. The world it's in, especially the uniqueness of the sect the MC is in, is the best I've ever read in cultivation novels. It really makes you care about the world and all the other people in the sect. Side characters that actually matter a whole lot is pretty rare in both cultivation novels and other female MC novels. The MC, rather than being all capable and perfect, has a very charming and endearing personality that has more of talent and luck that are sparingly and skillfully utilized by the author instead of the usual back-to-back-perfect-results-yeah-bitch-I'm-an-assassin/doctor-from-another-world. The MC is an actual resident of the world, so there's that. And of course, this would've all been useless if the Male Lead didn't make the cut. If I had to describe him, he's like if the MC of Noblesse was in a xianxia world. You definitely won't find any domineering personality in him. In fact, you won't find much of that in the entire cultivation world because it entered some kind of modern age where large scale wars are a thing of the past. I highly recommend this if you're into the historical genre of these female MC novels. They're similar enough. This took longer to write than I thought so I'll make the next two a bit shorter. The next is the very first shojo novel that I've read, and probably the best one out there that's purely shojo, <Kenkyo, Kenjitsu o Motto ni Ikite Orimasu>. It's a reincarnated as the villain novel, the best one that I've read. It starts off from kindergarten all the way to high school, and you really come to know and understand the MC. It's a really comfy novel with each chapter still being meaningful and complete. It doesn't feel like you're trapped in one single time frame doing various things that are somehow all in just one single school year. Of course, the best part about is that... *drum roll* the MC has bad luck at romance! To the point where I've read, the MC still doesn't have a relationship with some alpha male. And the MC does actually fall in love at times, but they never really work out. She is acquaintance with the Male Lead and the Supporting Male Lead from the manga that she reincarnated into, but they definitely don't have romantic feelings sparking all around, at least not yet. They get to know each other for literally a decade that it doesn't really feel like they're romantic interests anymore. Don't get that wrong tho, the novel definitely has romance. Just that the MC has bad luck. This went on longer than I thought again, so I'll just end this by saying get ready to be gokigenyou'd. The last and probably most faithful to this whole Female MC with a rapey ML shtick is <Perfect Secret Love The Bad New Wife is a Little Sweet>. It's a second chance novel set in the Modern world that literally starts with the MC locked in a room by the male lead. The ML is DEFINITELY the domineering type, but in a different, almost refreshing way. Unlike the others who feel like the authors doesn't really put weight into his descriptions of, this one literally has the MC locked in his house for years. The author doesn't even need to bother describing his personality, that alone there makes him a lot more legit than all the other MLs out there. He's in no way a good guy, definitely killed a few of his uncles and relatives to gain control of the family. And that's what I like about the novel. The Mary Sue actually does FEAR the ML in this one. Because of that, the early parts of the novel is spent trying to find ways for him to allow her to have a life outside. I'm not sure if it's actually just as good with the other aspects as the other novels since I usually don't last more than a few chapters after the ML's introductions, but what I know is that it definitely opened the world of a woman faking tears and making pitfalls for other women. Just by bypassing that one barrier, the impassable wall that is the domineering ML curse, by making it THE journey and destination and not as a reason to drop it, it made me relive what it's like to read something new again. Those three are the best ones that I've read and this obsession of mine started ever since the biggest disappointment of a creepy fucking oh-so-perfect ML of <The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage>, who for some reason the author thought it was okay to "unintentionally and harmlessly" molest the MC just because he was described to be with perfect looks and "mysterious". I hate to the guts how pretentious it felt like and I really did think that the novel was the best novel I've read at the time, prior to when the ML started to get involved in the whole thing. Well there's a long wall of text there, I hope any passing readers didn't mind the length of it.