Hazel gets into new genres
Thursday, 15 October 2020 12:38![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lea_hazelIt was alias_sqbr unsurprisingly who first got me into Beware of the Vilainess (now also a Yuletide fandom), and thus introduced me to an entire sub-genre of webtoons, much to my delight. "Villainess" comics (manga and manhwa, originating from a variety of countries and each with its own unique twist) that revolve around the isekai premise of a modern person "falling into" (or reincarnating into) a video game, except it's an otome dating sim, and the female protagonist is reincarnated as the game's catty and vain female villain. Basically, the rough equivalent of what USian hgh school shows call an "alpha bitch", on the model of Mean Girls' Regina George, but like, the daughter of a duke in a fantasy kingdom.
The in-universe game's premise revolves around the heroine being a "saintess", a model of feminine virtue who's gentle, healing (often literally), and preternaturally forgiving. She's instantly more beautiful and more popular than the alpha bitch villainess, sometimes despite being an adopted commoner. Often it seems one of the men who falls for her will be the villainess's fiance, who will then break off the engagement with his unpleasant betrothed, causing her to fall into a jealous rage and do everything in her power to sabotage the saintly heroine (who will then forgive her and tearfully insist that they could've been friends). The level of violence varies.
The reaction of the protagonist also varies. Some of them want to redeem the villainess that they were reincarnated as, and set her on a better path. I generally find this less interesting, because I'm me and a horrible little gremlin. A lot of these de-villification schemes seem to involve the villainess acting as wife or step-mother to a character who would eventually have become a villain, or even an older sister. By contrast, my favorite stories (from the ones I've read) give some kind of twist on the theme. Like "Beware of the Villainess", which starts with the protagonist cheerfully proclaiming that she intends to be neither saint nor villain, just to enjoy her life as a rich duke's daughter in the lap of luxury... until she opens a campaign to rescue the original saintly heroine from her sub-par male love interests.
I keep losing track of all the comics I'm following, and because so many of these are fan translations, the update schedule isn't always consistent. Labor of love, and all. The villainess tag also branches out from isekai stories to more general time travel and reincarnation ones, or other variations on second-chance tropes.
* Beware of the Villainess, the first one I read, now at 40+ chapters translated into English. As Melissa Podebrat, the Korean protagonist reevaluates her opinions of the male cast of the light novel she fell into. They begin to seem like stalkers and incorrigible bastards, and she decides that the heroine Yuri deserves better, which Yuri seems to agree with. Melissa is endearingly bratty, manipulating her knowledge of the game to gain the upper hand and scandalize the crusty nobility by riding, fencing, and cancelling her engagement to the Crown Princess that she was previously "in love" with. This book has cute art and an unrestrained kind of humor which I enjoy a lot. Teh translators also do a good job of noting cultural references, like to Korean memes and so on.
* To Be You, Even Just for a Day, or under the official English translation, Your Throne. This body-swapping tale draws inspiration from the tale of Eros and Psyche, and follows the villainess Medea after she is rejected by Crown Prince Eros, in favor of the sheltered and naive Psyche. Medea is brilliant and Machiavellian, and the plot that unfolds is full of secrets, lies and conspiracies. What develops between Medea and Psyche is not quite like the friendship of Meliss and Yuri (above), but they form a tenuous kind of alliance that benefits them both. The fan translation was discontinued when the official one came out, and the official has a slightly weird payment model that I haven't totally figured out. But the art is gorgeous and Medea is my kind of protag.
* The Villainess Reverses the Hourglass. In this book, the protagonist Aria discovers that her step-sister manipulated her into taking on the role of the villainess. When she's reincarnated by use of a magical hourglass, she resolves to out-villain the villain and ruin Mielle's life in every possible way, from wrecking her noble father's finances to seducing her beloved fiance, the young and handsome (but weak-willed) duke. As a seasoned twenty-something schemer in a teenage girl's body, Aria quickly catches up to noble society's expectations of what a lady ought to be like, despite being the common daughter of a courtesan who became a count's second wife. She implements all the lessons of her first life, and launches a complicated economic scheme to secure her future and humiliate her enemies. I don't know much about economics, so it's hard for me to gauge whether her machinations hold water, but it all looks very impressive.
* Death Is the Only Ending for the Villainess, a very gamey webnovel where the Korean protagonist stays up all night playing an otome game and discovers that the game's "hard mode" involves playing the same plot, from the POV of the villainess. A very meta premise that seems to lean towards deconstruction, especially as she discovers that she relates more to the villain due to her own uncomfortable family background. The villainess Penelope is the doppelganger who took the place of the missing duke's daughter, and when the real daughter returns, she's thrust into the role of villain. Her anxious analysis of the only route that's likely to save her from certain death causes her to doubt the choices she made as a player, and "accidentally" fall into choices that raise the relationship meter of her fake brothers, totally oblivioud to the fact that they're both uncomfortably attracted to her. It hasn't been updated in a while, but it doesn't seem to be formally on hiatus.
* The Villainess Lives Twice is by far the best of the dramatically oriented books that I read. Here the villainess is instructed from childhood to do everything to promote her brother, an imperial bastard, ascending to the throne. Once he gets his way, he scapegoats her in a very violent and gruesome fashion, and proceeds to become a notorious tyrant. She's rescued by rebels and executes a desperate dark ritual to reverse time and prevent her brother's ascention. Despite (because of) her self-sacrifice, she emerges herself back in the past, and proceeds to use all of her manipulation and scheming to ensure that the heir to the throne is not her vicious, violent brother but the last honest man in the empire. Who of course proceeds to fall in love with her. If you like stories in which a very noble and righteous man adores a cold and manipulative woman who has never been unconditionally loved... Well, prepare to lose your entire mind. Tia (Artezia) is a great protagonist who doesn't get any less clever or scheming when she accidentally falls in love with Cedric. There is bonus revenge. The story is fairly violent but the art isn't as gory in its depiction as, say, "To Be You..." where characters regularly appear drenched in blood. The verisimilitude suffers but to be honest, I love Tia and Cedric too much to care. Y'all know what it takes to make me ship het.
* Shadow Queen. I just started this novel where the premise is slightly similar to the in-game story of "Death Is the Only Ending...", and the protagonist is tricked into taking the place of a supposedly-dead duke's daughter, only to have the duke and the trueborn daughter turn on her after she had finished her role in their scheme. Why exactly they needed her wasn't clear from the chapters I read, but the reincarnated Elena is clever and bent on revenge, and I want to catch up and find out what happens next.
I meant to note how many chapters each one has, but lost track. There are also a couple of others I've read through, but have decided not to link due to being ambivalent about their quality. I remain alert to emerging recs.
Now I'm going to sink into another one, and see if I have more recs for you later.
alias_sqbr unsurprisingly who first got me into Beware of the Vilainess (now also a Yuletide fandom), and thus introduced me to an entire sub-genre of webtoons, much to my delight. "Villainess" comics (manga and manhwa, originating from a variety of countries and each with its own unique twist) that revolve around the isekai premise of a modern person "falling into" (or reincarnating into) a video game, except it's an otome dating sim, and the female protagonist is reincarnated as the game's catty and vain female villain. Basically, the rough equivalent of what USian hgh school shows call an "alpha bitch", on the model of Mean Girls' Regina George, but like, the daughter of a duke in a fantasy kingdom. The in-universe game's premise revolves around the heroine being a "saintess", a model of feminine virtue who's gentle, healing (often literally), and preternaturally forgiving. She's instantly more beautiful and more popular than the alpha bitch villainess, sometimes despite being an adopted commoner. Often it seems one of the men who falls for her will be the villainess's fiance, who will then break off the engagement with his unpleasant betrothed, causing her to fall into a jealous rage and do everything in her power to sabotage the saintly heroine (who will then forgive her and tearfully insist that they could've been friends). The level of violence varies.
The reaction of the protagonist also varies. Some of them want to redeem the villainess that they were reincarnated as, and set her on a better path. I generally find this less interesting, because I'm me and a horrible little gremlin. A lot of these de-villification schemes seem to involve the villainess acting as wife or step-mother to a character who would eventually have become a villain, or even an older sister. By contrast, my favorite stories (from the ones I've read) give some kind of twist on the theme. Like "Beware of the Villainess", which starts with the protagonist cheerfully proclaiming that she intends to be neither saint nor villain, just to enjoy her life as a rich duke's daughter in the lap of luxury... until she opens a campaign to rescue the original saintly heroine from her sub-par male love interests.
I keep losing track of all the comics I'm following, and because so many of these are fan translations, the update schedule isn't always consistent. Labor of love, and all. The villainess tag also branches out from isekai stories to more general time travel and reincarnation ones, or other variations on second-chance tropes.
* Beware of the Villainess, the first one I read, now at 40+ chapters translated into English. As Melissa Podebrat, the Korean protagonist reevaluates her opinions of the male cast of the light novel she fell into. They begin to seem like stalkers and incorrigible bastards, and she decides that the heroine Yuri deserves better, which Yuri seems to agree with. Melissa is endearingly bratty, manipulating her knowledge of the game to gain the upper hand and scandalize the crusty nobility by riding, fencing, and cancelling her engagement to the Crown Princess that she was previously "in love" with. This book has cute art and an unrestrained kind of humor which I enjoy a lot. Teh translators also do a good job of noting cultural references, like to Korean memes and so on.
* To Be You, Even Just for a Day, or under the official English translation, Your Throne. This body-swapping tale draws inspiration from the tale of Eros and Psyche, and follows the villainess Medea after she is rejected by Crown Prince Eros, in favor of the sheltered and naive Psyche. Medea is brilliant and Machiavellian, and the plot that unfolds is full of secrets, lies and conspiracies. What develops between Medea and Psyche is not quite like the friendship of Meliss and Yuri (above), but they form a tenuous kind of alliance that benefits them both. The fan translation was discontinued when the official one came out, and the official has a slightly weird payment model that I haven't totally figured out. But the art is gorgeous and Medea is my kind of protag.
* The Villainess Reverses the Hourglass. In this book, the protagonist Aria discovers that her step-sister manipulated her into taking on the role of the villainess. When she's reincarnated by use of a magical hourglass, she resolves to out-villain the villain and ruin Mielle's life in every possible way, from wrecking her noble father's finances to seducing her beloved fiance, the young and handsome (but weak-willed) duke. As a seasoned twenty-something schemer in a teenage girl's body, Aria quickly catches up to noble society's expectations of what a lady ought to be like, despite being the common daughter of a courtesan who became a count's second wife. She implements all the lessons of her first life, and launches a complicated economic scheme to secure her future and humiliate her enemies. I don't know much about economics, so it's hard for me to gauge whether her machinations hold water, but it all looks very impressive.
* Death Is the Only Ending for the Villainess, a very gamey webnovel where the Korean protagonist stays up all night playing an otome game and discovers that the game's "hard mode" involves playing the same plot, from the POV of the villainess. A very meta premise that seems to lean towards deconstruction, especially as she discovers that she relates more to the villain due to her own uncomfortable family background. The villainess Penelope is the doppelganger who took the place of the missing duke's daughter, and when the real daughter returns, she's thrust into the role of villain. Her anxious analysis of the only route that's likely to save her from certain death causes her to doubt the choices she made as a player, and "accidentally" fall into choices that raise the relationship meter of her fake brothers, totally oblivioud to the fact that they're both uncomfortably attracted to her. It hasn't been updated in a while, but it doesn't seem to be formally on hiatus.
* The Villainess Lives Twice is by far the best of the dramatically oriented books that I read. Here the villainess is instructed from childhood to do everything to promote her brother, an imperial bastard, ascending to the throne. Once he gets his way, he scapegoats her in a very violent and gruesome fashion, and proceeds to become a notorious tyrant. She's rescued by rebels and executes a desperate dark ritual to reverse time and prevent her brother's ascention. Despite (because of) her self-sacrifice, she emerges herself back in the past, and proceeds to use all of her manipulation and scheming to ensure that the heir to the throne is not her vicious, violent brother but the last honest man in the empire. Who of course proceeds to fall in love with her. If you like stories in which a very noble and righteous man adores a cold and manipulative woman who has never been unconditionally loved... Well, prepare to lose your entire mind. Tia (Artezia) is a great protagonist who doesn't get any less clever or scheming when she accidentally falls in love with Cedric. There is bonus revenge. The story is fairly violent but the art isn't as gory in its depiction as, say, "To Be You..." where characters regularly appear drenched in blood. The verisimilitude suffers but to be honest, I love Tia and Cedric too much to care. Y'all know what it takes to make me ship het.
* Shadow Queen. I just started this novel where the premise is slightly similar to the in-game story of "Death Is the Only Ending...", and the protagonist is tricked into taking the place of a supposedly-dead duke's daughter, only to have the duke and the trueborn daughter turn on her after she had finished her role in their scheme. Why exactly they needed her wasn't clear from the chapters I read, but the reincarnated Elena is clever and bent on revenge, and I want to catch up and find out what happens next.
I meant to note how many chapters each one has, but lost track. There are also a couple of others I've read through, but have decided not to link due to being ambivalent about their quality. I remain alert to emerging recs.
Now I'm going to sink into another one, and see if I have more recs for you later.
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2020-10-15 22:33 (UTC)no subject
2020-10-16 11:53 (UTC)