#sbap

She started off with a loose goal of surviving for the first half of the novel, and when that situation is resolved the whole second half of the novel she acts carelessly without a goal or drive. Rather than a main character slowly going through development, for the whole second half of the novel she acts more as a narrator than an actual character with dreams or desires and interacts with others without any sort of meaning or consideration. It’s suddenly at the climax at the very end of the story when she has a very abrupt epitome of “Oh, all of these people who I’ve been treating as fictional characters are actually flawed people with struggles”, before returning to her carefree way of life right as the story closes. However, there is no build up to this realization—rather, it presents as a thought that comes only because the situation called for it. She only seems to easily see people outside of the novel as ‘human’—people like her maids Hannah, Seth, or the wizards of the tower, or even Lucas himself. However, when it comes to the people who appear in the novel of “Lovely Princess” she almost dehumanizes them, reducing them to ‘characters’ who have to play a ‘role’.

This can be seen how despite the amount of times she’s identified signs of Ijekiel’s feelings for her or Jennette’s depression, she brushes them off until it’s too late and Ijekiel is openly expressing his jealousy and Jennette has attempted suicide. It’s easily seen as well when you compare her treatment of Hari to her treatment of Cabel—Hari, who never appears in “Lovely Princess”, she easily thinks about and mentions quite often fondly like a friend despite her encounter being very brief. But when Cabel appears in story, she often calls him ‘puppy-like’ (as direct call backs from her reader standpoint towards the novel) and almost always mention his status as the second male lead, constantly bringing up his role in “Lovely Princess” and acknowledging his presence as if he were still that exact character from a book. Like when she interacts with Ijekiel, she doesn’t seem to acknowledge him as a fellow peer or even the brother of a friend—but rather the ‘second male lead’ in a ‘novel’. The dehumanization is blatant, along with her romanticization of the novel itself and projecting those thoughts onto the real people she’s become acquainted with.

This becomes clear when she deals with Jennette and Ijekiel. Almost every encounter with them, or rather whenever they are together, she seems to view them with rose tinted glasses of that of a reader living through a ‘romantic moment’ between the leads of novel—rather than as a fellow human being. Just as she mentions how it took her so long to see even Claude as a human, to the very end she allows her perception of “the female lead Jennette” and “the male lead Ijekiel” to dictate how she treats the two of them. With Ijekiel, she dismisses his blatant advances because to her, the idea of “perfect male lead Ijekiel” taking a fancy to someone other than “the lovely female lead Jennette” is impossible. It’s to the point that she acknowledges that she had to snuff her own developing feelings for him out because of that perception—that a such a young love would never bloom because Ijekiel is “the male lead”.

This projection of her perception of Ijekiel leads to her inability to acknowledge Ijekiel himself, which worsens the more she interacts with Jennette. Jennette—the lovely female lead of the novel—whom Athy had grown close to as best friends (Lee Jihye’s own quote herself!), but strings along halfheartedly. Her rose tinted perception of Jennette has led to the girls own downfall, acknowledging at the end herself that she had seen the signs of Jennette’s struggling but intentionally kept turning away from it. Simply, it was because she deemed Jennette as the “female lead” of a novel. “If Jennette is in trouble, Jennette can deal with it herself”—because that’s what happens when you’re the female lead. If Jennette is getting picked on by background characters, it’s something the female lead has to deal with on her own—even if Lee Jihye, as Jennette’s best friend, had all the power to intervene. Her fairytale-like perception of Ijekiel and Jennette has led to her physically unable to see Jennette and Ijekiel having complex feelings, be it as humans, or to eachother.

This is why I think the ending for Ijekiel and Jennette in the novel is just so tragic—Lee Jihye encourages Ijekiel to go with Jennette in her exile because she still sees Ijekiel and Jennette’s relationship with rose-tinted novel-reader glasses—that it is Ijekiel’s duty to ‘protect’ Jennette, despite the fact that Jennette’s own state was a result of Ijekiel’s cruel rejection of pent up negative emotions in the first place. She fails to even consider there actually being bad blood between them, or that this perception of hers is in actuality hurting both Jennette and Ijekiel—Jennette, who to us readers has revealed how Ijekiel’s falsity hurts her more than his cruel honesty—and Ijekiel, who never had never honestly spoken to Jennette nor gotten to know her. The sidestories even reveal a bit of this future—that despite the time passed, Ijekiel and Jennette hardly look at each other. Yet, Lee Jihye insists on their repaired relationship because she herself still fully hasn’t comprehended the two of them as flawed humans who had a genuine fall out—she sees it just as it was at the end of the middle school grade novel by the name of Lovely Princess. That to Lee Jihye, despite the turmoil and grief “female lead Jennette” faced, within the arms of “her beloved male lead Ijekiel”, she was comforted and healed. Except this isn’t a novel, and Lee Jihye spoke of a relationship between two people she knew nothing about—the ‘lovely female lead Jennette’ who had been falling apart for years to depression and the lack of genuine affection, and the ‘perfect male lead Ijekiel’ who had fallen almost obsessively in love with her to the point he’d reject his ‘female lead’ in a way he knew would torture his ‘female lead’ best all while silently jealous of everyone Athy loved.

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Idk if anyone had done this au but here you go:

Crystal Eyes Au

An AU where the creator!Reader has crystal eyes like in the manhwa called "Who made me a princess"

Reference:

This was specifically the WMMAP i really really wanted to have ever since i laid my eyes on it, and after seeing @ultramarine-spirit's review on it i decided that i should try finding it so i don't have to long for it anymore. I got unbelievably lucky with this because it was the last one on sale and it was at a decent price, so thankfully it easy to convince my dad to lend me the money to buy it and he is a real MVP in this. Without further ado, i'll jump right into my review!