It begins as a usual isekai story.
No, wait. It`s worse. It's otome isekai. And I`m the villain.
Of course, there must be some kind of cheat to make up for it. It's that kind of story.
And my cheat is... being a shoggoth. Which apparently includes being a genius with setting up all sorts of production. Because "engineered to be universal labor" backstory for that race, I surmise.
So... Screw it, full steam ahead. Let's see what I can make out of this world and it's ikebana-based magic.
Its really hard reading this novel.
All those foreign terms & references that had no explanation, the long rumbling of self comment that interrupt the flow of the story, the messy story that seems skipping or incoherent.
I need work hard to reread the story & googling to really understand the story.
Idk how others have such high praise, but thats it for me.
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The only thing I wanted to point out was that sometimes you seem to forget some words. Like "Rising against legitimate king will be expensive" instead of "Rising against THE legitimate king will be expensive". I don't know if you're a native English speaker, but this is just something to keep in mind, because while your story is very much readable, this will make it even better.
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A lot of people are leaving 1-star reviews because of the first few chapters. Honestly, they aren't qualified to judge the story as a whole, but whatever. While I admit that the first couple chapters aren't great, they are 2-3 stars at the absolute worst, and the character-focused style rapidly makes the whole thing great.
As far as actual grammar goes, there is only one real issue, the ongoing lack of articles. This is mostly due to the author being Russian, and the Russian language having no articles. Still, the grammar is better than most stories on this site, so you tell me if that should deduct points.
The author's take on eldritch beings as semi-benevolent is honestly one of the major reasons I even started this story, so the complaints about that are clearly kinda dumb, both logically (author can write whatever she wants) and practically (clearly most people are enjoying it). Even in the source material, most eldritch entities were indifferent, not malicious. Hell, some even had pet civilizations! People are clearly making judgements without reading the source material or the actual story beyond a chapter, and that kind of pisses me off.
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A highly amusing premise that falters in delivery. The story is essentially generic isekai that showcases the headspace of a rambling monster. There is a distinct lack of tension in all scenes, which provides very little suspense in the action, which causes those scenes to be quite flat. This may be due to the perspective of the main character, who is relatively disinterested at such moments. Such mellowness is acerbated by the fact that there is next to nothing in the way of speed bumps for the main character or any of her undertakings.
Which should be fine, this is a slice of life school story after all; the characters and their interactions should hold us captive. Said characters are sort of varied and interesting enough, though their interactions are not. There is entirely too much exposition given to retelling events. Observing reactions to the same events is amusing once or twice, but three or four times causes it to becomes quite stale. There is also an over abundance of 'face-slapping'. While breaking some social norms may continually subvert the expectations of characters, it becomes rather trite for the reader.
Introducing the third and fourth harem members simultaneously is another aspect that I felt was a terrible decision for the pacing. The initial two harems members character's were built up slowly, by immediately doubling that it becomes difficult to appreciate the identity of the new members.
Never the less, there were bits and bobs that I enjoyed. The Konistan events were decent. The ongoing international espionage is amusing, particularly the cookie chapter. The dreamwalking chapters.
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The synopsis is beyond misleading. Here, I'll rewrite it for you but I'm really bad at this. Nevermind that's against the rules, so I'll re-rewrite this even though it won't be removed.
Really, I can just summarize as it being Otome to the point of being a parody, and the main character's inner dialogue is insufferable. Oh, we're also given stupid amounts of useless information for some reason.
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Fanfic mixed with LARPing among friends, affecting dialogue and character choices. Focus is literally on the aut.. (Cough) I mean MC, to the point where everything is laid at her feet for her convenience.
Most characters exist in service of the MC instead of being their own persons.
MC comes off as obnoxious rather than confident given how she speaks and thinks. Etiquette, decorum and protocol take a back seat (and falls off occasionally never to be seen again til later) during dialogues, notably between nobility and royalty, especially with the MC.
Lastly: Details. Are. Lacking.
I tried hard to imagine the world and characters but in the end, it just became cases of *I guess that happened* quite often. It happened because somehow it did. Don't ask too many questions.
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(Really 4.5 star because there are some small issues but I like the series a lot so I rounded up).
This story is phenomenal. It takes a lot of my least favorite cliche isekai tropes and turns them on their head, while embracing many of the classic ones with it's own twist.
Also, if the harem tag is a turn off to anyone (as it usually is to me) I suggest giving it a try anyway, as the harem relationships are actually pretty damn wholesome. It's actually closer to polyfidelity than a harem as each member of the harem gets along really well and some of them even... entertain each other when MC isn't there. Though, MC is the focus of the harem as she is literally woman enough for all of them and then some (you'll see what I mean).
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The beginning is a bit rough but it turns into a pretty enjoyable story later on about an eldritch abomination trying to be an OP protagonist without accidentally starting any cults or driving her family irreversibly insane.
The Otome part isn't played up as much and quite a few of the side characters have been developed a bit, which is encouraging to see this early in a web novel.
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I gotta say this is a really good novel, especially if you want to improve your vocabulary with rarely used words (really, I searching terms), I can't say the same about grammar though (a LOT of missing "the" amongst other things).
The story is interesting as in she uses her knowledge from her last life to improve a medieval age with magic mixed in, plus an additional fact that she's basically a tentacle abomination from Lovecraft that can shapeshift into a human form.
Also magic has an unique mechanic that's different from other novels, which is everyone (except MC because yes) needs to use flowers to use magic.
Overall it was a nice read, if you can look over the fact that it's not really edited
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This is probably one of the most complete fictional worlds I have come across, similar to Mass Effect and The Lord of the Rings. In fact, the massive world-building infodump of the first chapter (which I highly enjoyed) is very reminiscent of the first chapter of LOTR "Concerning Hobbits".
Edit: I've re-read this story several times now and some action and world-building parts are still exciting. And the use of many different languages helps to further sell the realism.
Edit 2: also can't believe I didn't mention that the parts where the story delves into the eldritch aspects are some of my favourites. That part when a certain antagonist... "beheld art" is an excellent example.
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