u/CriticalTea6516

Why not just send them to live with a relative? Seriously. Your daughter “killed” your wife in childbirth, okay. You hate her and wish she’d never been born. Okay.

So just send her away to live with a relative. Don’t keep her home and let the house abuse her, and then act surprised when she grows up and shuts you out. Let someone from your tree claim ward ship. It’s not that hard. Is there a low risk of scandal? Yeah, but it really shouldn’t mean that much if your hatred for her runs so deep. It beats letting her grow up neglected.

It’s so simple. If you’re not gonna raise her, let a woman in your or your wife’s family raise her.

Seriously. I love this trope so bad. Like “oh yeah they agreed to be in a fake relationship for their own benefit and then agreed to split things after a certain qualification has been met/a certain period of time has passed. But oh now it’s actually time to split and one of them doesn’t want to.” I eat it up so bad because it legitimately so cute. It’s time for the marriage to dissolve and he immediately shuts her down and begins listing the political weight of their contract marriage and the political drawbacks the annulment would bring (he’s bullshitting because he fell in love with her not even 4 months into the marriage). A marriage between the grand Duke of and a daughter of nobleman doesn’t simply dissolve because she don’t feel like it anymore. What precedent would that set?

Even though he said, when they signed, “Then let this marriage be like me– Devoid of love.” Like a fucking dork. He had no idea his own heart was gonna play in his face.

They both signed. They both made adjustments to the contract for their own interest here and there. They agreed, wedded, lived in the duchy. And then she becomes beloved not only by the manors residents, but him. And intensely fast.

Female lead: Alright, time’s up/we’ve done what we needed to achieve with this marriage, let’s dissolve it.
Male lead: No.
Female lead: …What do you mean NO?
Male lead: Think about the optics. If we annul now, the public will speculate.
Female lead: I stopped caring about my reputation long ago, and it’s not like yours will take any beatings- They’ll pin the blame on me somehow anyways. Let them speculate.
Male lead: About you? No.
Female lead: You sound oddly attached for a man that accepted the terms of this agreement.
Male lead: That’s just your imagination. *is monstrously down bad for her, and has been down bad for her since they’ve been married*

Like… I love that. Is it corny? Yes.
Is it camp? Yes.
Is it unrealistic for the idea of a contract marriage between a grand duke and marquis daughter to exist? Oh absolutely.
But do I love it? Yes. It’s slop. Unrealistic slop. But it’s my slop. And I will feast like a starving Victorian child.

This trope and any siblings/cousins to it will always warm my heart. Because then this reserved stone faced doofus turns into yearnertron3000 and the idiot who wanted to walk out has to face the fact that she’s about as deep into this as he is and somewhere along the way this “contract” started seeming like a sham because it seemed like he really does love her, but she suppressed the FUCK out of it + tried to pretend like he was just being really really courteous because she’s also as emotionally constipated as he is about romance. They’re both dummies. They both need to kiss and terminate the idea that any of what they felt was “fake”.

Like… imagine the female lead one day going “welp, contract time is almost up. Butler, head maid, steward, guard captain, as you know me and the dukes anniversary is coming up. Which also means that our contract is reaching its end. That being said, I am officially moving out of the duchy by the end of next month. I require help moving my things.”

And they’re all standing there like: “You guys haven’t done away with that flimsy illusion yet?” Positively gobsmacked.

Give me that.

War heroes are often incredibly romanticized in Korean rofan, as we all are very much aware at this point . And I don’t mean to bring realism into romance fantasy but every time I read about a male lead who’s the empires right hand man or the “empires sword” whenever it comes to war I can’t not feel a little disgusted. It’s usually included as a footnote to add that scary spice to his character and to give the story a future plot beat where he needs to go off to war for 1-5 years and have the female lead yearn over him.

And the thing is. When the story goes “this guys a war hero” and the female lead goes “oh he’s so scary and intimidating”… It purposely fails to pinpoint the real violence of his occupation. At best one will say “he’s led (x amount) wars and is hailed as a hero by the emperor/king” but that’s just to glaze him for being a strong alpha male whom nobody can threaten. Not once have I ever seen a female lead go “the blood he’s spilt will carry on to the child i must bare for him” – I WILL throw a bone here and exclude the females lead who are high ranking noblewomen who have never had any reason to see war as a normalized tool because it’s not her kingdom getting decimated. Everyone else, though, especially the ones reincarnated from the 21st century, are getting looked at sideways. War is not just fighting (back) against an enemy faction, it is bloody conquest and conflict. There’s really nothing to simplify unless you want to get into the real nitty gritty and talk about how the first to suffer from war are almost always women regardless of age.

Sorry, I know I’m bringing in too much realistic opinions on a genre where women literally have the power to travel back in time after death, but recently I’ve just been turning away from anything to do with that trope (which, as we can all guess, is over half of the novels in this category).

OBVIOUSLY this doesn’t mean that every single male lead out there is an unforgivable cold-blooded conqueror leading campaigns and atrocities like a blood son of Genghis Khan (as a matter of fact, most MLs are born into the “empires lapdog” role because ducal orbit is inseparable from imperialism. But some of these stories don’t explain or even want to touch on how the ML feels about that). However, as someone who lives in a third world country that currently has some catastrophic going-ons in the political sphere I just gotta… Bombastic side eye. Granted I do understand the romanticism of the “war duke” trope and its origins trailing back to actually being defenses against the Mongols + the Korean War is still very much active to this very second (since only a ceasefire was ratified).

I still don’t particularly favor it though, sorry :p

Edit: I especially hate anything where the kingdom or empire is just expanding so they start campaigns – Or where the female lead is a “spoil of war” but the male lead loves her sooo much despite the fact that he led a campaign that colonized her home country. I actually read the full of this because I was too disgusted not to, but I can’t remember the name oh my goooddd. Her entire half family is on the casualty list and she’s okay with being his broodmare because they mistreated her and because she’s the daughter of a maid. Mind you, her kingdom got wiped out. Despising your abusive family does not contradict the fact that the home your were born in was subjugated by the same man you’re marrying. I don’t like using this word but she’s insane for ever falling in love with him. It’s not even Stockholm syndrome she’s actually in love with him.

I tried to really like this anime past its first season but really i just can’t. The mc is genuinely not my cup of tea, and I tried to push through the recent season and I find myself regressing to the magic of the first season. Specifically what I’m seeking for is any fantasy anime where the mc is… growing up on the countryside and ends up in this travel across the world. If you’ve seen Wakfu or Magi, something like that. The mc comes from relatively humble beginnings, and lives in a world of magic and European-like nobility and regency. He doesn’t have to be super proficient in sword fighting, honestly I’d like it if they had to claw their way up the power ranks. I hate the instantly OP stuff.

I’m sure some of you are aware of the recent news involving this guy earlier this morning (and if you’re not, just look up “LADS Valko” anywhere). I’m not going to get into it too much, I’m already heartbroken as it is (as one of my mutuals put it: “My husband died in war before I even got to see his face.) But this is a question to all of my LADS sisters: What male leads reminds you of Valko? Because I love his specific archetype (he’s the reason why I even redownloaded the game if I’m being honest right now). For anyone who’s curious on what I’m talking about, here’s the basics:
•Nerdy (not just with swords god please)
•Himbo-ish
•A little feral
•A (loving) pain in the female leads ass
•Likes being annoying
•Extremely smart and competent for what his behavior suggests
•NERDY
•Stupid
•Huge giant puppy (probably like husky level of attachment)

I think, considering Russias real life geography between Eurasia , it’d make sense for a typical Duke of the north to have some homage paid in regards to it.

Am I saying this because of genshins incoming Tsaritsa reveal? Yeah. Bite me, sue me. But I am honestly surprised. This seems like a goldmine of reference. But alas, everything must be explicitly European inspired. Sad.

Edit: Holy shit I appreciate the history lesson, guys. This is genuinely interesting stuff

I feel like that’s really strong. So when she proposes “I won’t fall in love with you” or anything, she has a failsafe: If they do, they’ll have to dead it. Because the most important thing in high nobility is securing heirs. If the wife can’t have children, then she’s viewed as less of a woman (I fucking hate that I had to type that out but that’s unfortunately the misogynistic mindset of the time period most of these series take place in) . So it becomes an actual challenge on the male leads side: Does he divorce her for dynastic oblige, does he keep her and take in a concubine and humiliate her, or a third secret thing? Idk I just think that the whole “we won’t fall in love” thing gets stale if there isn’t any real failsafes. Emotions are fickle, and you’re only human, nothing is set in stone. But if you literally cannot fulfill your marital duties, then of course the only other option would be divorce. Thus, a temporary marriage.

Pretty self explanatory title. I’ve been entertaining this thought I’ve had for my own romantic fantasy:

Female lead gets reincarnated as a a villainous woman (I’m really thinking of someone in the position of Ruby from How to Win My Husband over since I’ve finished rereading it for a 2nd time lol) and she immediately sees how fucked her situation is. She tries to maybe suck up to the male lead in hopes to sway him to her side and defend her from the path she’s destined to go down (which ends in her death) and he shuns her away. It’s not just him, either. Everywhere she tries to appeal to, she is shunned or ignored or, because of the reputation of the woman she’s possessed, berated. She’s not even given the benefit of a doubt. It’s a genuinely hopeless situation everywhere she looks. She has no real allies, no real friends, not a single sway of power, nothing she knows for certain that will save her from her hopeless situation. She’s all alone. So you know what she does?

She gives up. Not in some great big declaration. But, if you’ve ever experienced depression + passive suicidal ideations, you would know what’s happening. She stops trying– At all. Eating, sleeping, going out, trying to “change herself”, trying to “be good”. The idea of salvation simmers and smolders out. She just completely stops. Period. She turns into a recluse and hides away in her bed, waiting for the other shoe to eventually drop so she can be done with this nonsense and pass away and hopefully reincarnate as either her modern day self or someone else with a better fate than her current self. She’s just waiting to wither.

Then enter the male lead, who’s received reports of his fiancés decline in health, spirit, and virtually every other quality she once flaunted when she first arrived. Naturally, he goes to her. Needless to say, she’s dismissive of him. He tries to push, asking what happened, and then she just snaps. Not loudly, mind you, pretty calmly. Completely devoid of life. She goes off listing how no matter what she’s done, what she’s tried, none of it matters. She came to his land, his castle, his life, with a negative stigma on her back, and everyone around her has unjust judged and abandoned her because of it. Even he has. Her life was destined from the moment she died. She doesn’t know why she ever even put any faith in him, she’s not his real wife.

And the male lead is honestly just wholly baffled by this. Because as she’s speaking, she’s very visibly crying. But her face is still blank, like she doesn’t even realize just how many tears are flowing, or she just doesn’t care. Her emotions have been completely repressed. She tells him that NOW he cares about her, now that she’s doing what everyone wanted and choosing to wither away in seclusion. He should be at least mildly joyous since at the very least, he can go to his parents and demand proper dissolution of their engagement (though if the engagement is called off, she is absolutely going back to her fathers mansion where 9 times out of 10 it will Not End Good for her. But genuinely she doesn’t care anymore). So he should go, and do just that. Get rid of her. She’s over it.

Except he doesn’t. He tells her on the spot that he’s not doing that. Now she’s pissed, but again her face isn’t so much as hinting at it. She calls him a hypocrite, a bastard, a fool who can’t make up his mind. She asks if he likes seeing her like this, if he hates her that much, or if he truly thinks he’s “righting his wrongs” somehow by doing this– Interfering with the one last honest thing she has to herself.

She’s just tearing straight into him (which honestly, good for her. She deserves it.) He never cared about her until now, and if he did and just had a bad way of showing it, that’s just as awful. She doesn’t need a fiance who she can’t tell loves her or not, she needs a fiance who will protect her. Do something. Anything. Other than just leave her to decipher everything, and then turn around when she comes to the only conclusion left (which is just letting herself die out).

She tells him to leave. He says no (or that he can’t). She grabs the nearest breakable object and tells him to go or else she will throw whatever she has at him, and then there’ll be an even bigger problem at hand for him to fix (blood, wounds, “crazy fiance” optics worsening for her)

He says no.

Several heartbeats pass. She throws it. It just BARELY misses his face. But the point is still there. He tells her that she may hit him, throw whatever she wants at him, choke him, hate him. He’ll take it. She says that his turnaround is disgusting and if he’s hoping to gain “forgiveness” or whatever from her then he’s a fool, and that she can’t even bare to hate him anymore now that he’s “given permission” to.

He asks what he can do to rectify himself. She tells him either to let her die, or break their engagement. She’s over trying to appeal to him, or anyone else for that matter. He truly disgusts her, and she would’ve been better off just acting as the original villainess did rather than this useless utterly humbling farce.

——-

Something like that? I don’t think this is TOO unique of a concept, but I also genuinely do not know if there is a manhwa that goes this dark. Though if there is PLEASE god let me know. The closest I got to this is Predatory Marriage, Wished You Were Dead, and maybe The Forgotten Field.

I so desperately need one where the female lead tears straight into the male lead (also I wanted Maxi from Under The Oak Tree to at some point genuinely verbally dismember Riftan.)

I know “fantasy” is in big bright bold blinking letters, and “suspension of disbelief” is right underneath like a trademark when it comes to this genre, but I really do wonder (because I haven’t read any so far) if any female leads have just… Gone crazy the moment they woke up as a new person/younger self? And I don’t mean an aristocratic gasp and a face touch while looking in the mirror or anything as dainty as that. I mean actual crashing out. Throwing things. Vomitting. Crying uncontrollably. Grief for their past life/unrepairable ptsd + phantom pains from the way they died (if they were killed). I mean, it gets so bad that they are looked different by everyone they’re around. A church member is called in. She maybe gets branded as something crazy (or, if she keeps acting like that, she will). That kind of level. I still can’t believe that most of these girls die awful tragic deaths (or get reincarnated as someone who will die an awful tragic death) and make a fast recovery from their initial shocks. Me personally? They’d need to get the cardinal to come bless me or whatever because no. Absolutely not. I’d be admitted to an asylum so fast.

Basically what I’m asking for is, are there any stories about the “Cinderella” of the family marrying the prince, and the political fallback of its reality? Because if we’re being honest, from a realistic POV, a girl that nobody knows marrying the kingdoms prince is opening Pandora’s box. The optics would be unbearably bone crushing. What would the nobles who were priming their daughters think, about a woman with no/lowly background stealing the affection of their kingdoms crown prince to the point he issues a kingdom wide search to find and marry her? Thats wild. And honestly , I’m completely interested.

This is a general statement in regards to this genre but right now im rereading The Abandoned Empress and I can’t stop thinking how dumb it is that Jiyeon was made empress over Tia because she was summoned from another world. While it is very much touched upon in the series itself I can’t help but think back to the other times this trope has played and how it’s been completely overlooked in other series’s. Like, we need to be politically aware here: You, as crown price/emperor/king, demoting your wife/fiance (or in other cases, straight divorcing her) because of an icon that the temple worships is insane. Regardless of whether she was your bethrothed or married, you are either exceedingly stupid or a pawn of a ruler.

That kind of act should by all means cause massive political turmoil, regardless of the kingdoms stance in theology. Maybe it’s just me but isn’t this the kind of stuff that actually serves as casus belli (cause for civil war/coups) from a nobility’s standpoint? (If not, then the direct brother or whatever claiming regency?) Of course this all depends on how deeply rooted themes of liturgy (and just how much power the empires religion itself holds up to date ) but from what I’ve reread, some of these stories just let it happen without consequence.

Maybe it’s on me for expecting a touch of realism in a genre where girls are actually reincarnated but I do think it’s rather asinine. (Anyways, I really liked The Abandoned Empress until the story started making it painstakingly clear that Ruve was the male lead and I’m rereading it because I like flocking back to glitzed up trash. Seriously, the art is eye candy to me)

I've gotten a real fixation on children being raised (double points if the female lead is the older sister) by fls and practically giving up everything to make sure that their younger brother /sister is able to live a proper child to adulthood.

This doesn't even have to be OI either I'm just looking for general recommendations within the scope.

I think I've only read a couple of these. Pretty much I'm looking for anything where the female lead sees the male lead (or the previous male lead) choosing another woman over her and just goes “Okay.” and simply leaves both emotionally, physically, and maritally? Like she just doesn't care enough to make a fuss over if and packs her things and goes

Just finished reading HTWMH and Izek is genuinely leagues above Riftan. I remember going into this series thinking it was going to be another UTOT situation, and to an extent it was. I found myself constantly making comparisons between Riftan and Izek because the similarities were too uncanny to be a coincidence. But after fully catching up I think I can say with full confidence that Izek genuinely dusts Riftan in terms of real character development in the “asshole ml who hates the female lead at first and constantly neglects her” department. Riftan… is almost in the exact same spot he’s been since the first chapter. I understand that growth itself isn’t a linear path of progression, but there is a certain point where after all this development in your relationship with your wife that it becomes a dead horse being beat.