#attdiao

Gagne every other day since Nero’s differentiation:

if you're looking for a romance, it's miserable. do not read this for the romance. nero spends a solid 95%+ of the book completely uninterested in any of the four gongs, to the point where it was genuinely upsetting to watch the four people nero values most, platonically, consistently sexualizing him and making things more difficult during his noble quest to be a good ruler because they all couldn't keep it in their pants. the scene where the four of them, in stupid attempts to assert dominance, trigger nero's heat, which triggers all of their ruts, resulting in all of them trying to assault him, making him have to fight them off - augh. i almost dnf'd there. also, the four love interests set up isn't an attempt to trick the reader - nero doesn't want saint louis or the system or anyone else you may hope for. he ends up with one of the four love interests, in a way that feels random, although, yes, the one he ends up with had the most backstory exploration and was the one nero wanted to spend the most time with outside of the role required by his profession.

if you're looking for a book that matches the title or plot description exactly, this is also not that! nero doesn't differentiate into an omega for more than half the book. i was really expecting the pre-differentiation part of the book to be a quick few chapters for background followed by a lot of interpersonal drama and romance. nope! there was interpersonal drama between the four gongs, but nero was, at best, annoyed about it.

however, if you love religious imagery but feel a little weird about explicitly christian imagery, this is great! if you love political plots and especially if you love them in an eternally hopeful good people can be in charge kind of way, this is wonderful! i loved the world the author set up, loved the epic mecha battles, and especially loved how distinct the author made each character. i don't generally like adaptations of novels, but this feels like a novel that would really shine adapted to a visual medium (not live action, though).

i also particularly enjoyed the holy son's plot. having him learn how the original plot was supposed to go and be pissed about it was a great touch.

additionally, i liked that nero wasn't a tyrant in the sense that you expect, but rather a thoughtful young man who cares about his people and puts his role as their emperor above literally everything else in his life, and i liked that that sense of overwhelming duty made him completely repressed in his personal life. i really wish more time was spent on lifting that, though. i'm going to be honest here and say that i skipped the last 8 chapters (read the last one just to check the ending bc i was irritated nero didn't end up with my pick and didn't want to read about him being with my least favorite (to read about, i do think he was the second-best choice as a love interest)), so i don't know precisely how that was resolved, just that it was, and that it happened over the span of 8 chapters out of 245 total.