It’s not anything game changing, but there are little details DOTE has that makes it feel way more immersive than when I was reading WMMAP. Ariadne starts off her infant life immediately showing vs telling, describing her disorientation to exactly how she’s at the mercy of her infant instincts more than not, which I feel is much more realistic than baby Athy somehow being completely in control of herself. While both protagonists’ internal monologues are very opinionated, the way Ariadne conducts herself by always waiting and observing the things around her and immersing the reader in things like touch, smell, hearing, or taste—her ability to pause and examine things before running her thoughts off makes her come off much more mature than how Lee Jihye came off as to me—Lee Jihye/Athy often ‘telling’ the reader how observant she is while never actually describing to the viewer, and letting her opinions run her narration instead of actually observing the world around her.

I also currently find Ariadne someone who pays more attention to the people and world she’s in—constantly watching and being on the lookout for what the people around her are doing (Elene’s loud clumsiness, Serira’s genuine maternal tenderness that touches her, fully believing her dad’s a cruel tyrant only because he supported the rumors by actively attempting to harm the innocent her, her dad’s voice alone alarming her to play pretend, not wanting to be near one of her dad’s concubines because she’s a hostage princess who likely resents her dad and would thus probably hurt her as his daughter and etc). I don’t need to be told Ariadne’s observant—I can see it myself, and tell Ariadne’s judgment comes from what she observes, logic, more than her opinion. She pays attention to stray gossip, and strings it together to figure out what the current situation and political climate is to figure out how to act appropriately. This is what makes her feel like an adult, someone who is sharp and in control of her thoughts and limited action, even if her body doesn’t obey.

In contrast, Lee Jihye/Athy’s narrations often jumped to conclusions based off of her own private opinions. Her knowledge mostly stems from what she read from the source novel, instead of what she observes firsthand, and in turn that affects her biases and opinions, thus dictating how she acts (inherently assuming Claude is a violent tyrant because that’s what the novel said, but all he ever really does during the childhood arc is kinda,,, stare at her intensely? And smirk occasionally? Vs Caitel who actively tried to strangle her and executes people on a whim which horrifies Ariadne). Claude is cruel yes, but what I find disgusting about him is more of his apathy and cruel mindset, thus allowing him to sputter out cruel and heartless words—but what Athy experiences are just that. Words. And stares. She doesn’t actively try to understand or figure out his horrifying mindset, just assumes the worst based off of what she read in the novel.

It’s one thing to identify a threat based off action, body language, and observation—it’s another to identify a threat because the (fictional) book said the person was a threat, so now you assume anything they do is danger. To be honest, the latter is fine as long as there’s observation thrown into the mix, but I must remind you that Lee Jihye’s narration rarely describes things—she comes to conclusions a lot, but the reader misses her thought process and how she came to that conclusion. So when she ‘figures something out’ or ‘acts’, it feels like it’s a bit unfounded or based off of her assumption, instead of what she tells us is her calculative observation. This is what sets Athy and Ariadne apart as protagonists for me—the writer’s ability to show vs tell.

There’s also a difference in the two writers’ ability to set the mood. How they write their protagonists is one thing, how they set the scene is another aspect of writing skill. I’ve mentioned previously that Plutus seems to struggle with pacing, in how or where to put emphasis on description vs narration to set a pace. The lack of description, narration holding a more dialogue-like quality, causes the sense of ‘time’ to quicken. Plutus’ writing, not being able to figure out where to slow or speed up ‘time’ via placement of narration and description, makes the mood of scenes feel off. Scenes that should be intense and quick are filled with description, scenes that should be slow are filled with dialogue and snappy thoughts—the reader isn’t allowed to really get a feel for the scenes written. Yunsul seems to have a better grasp of this however—I found her writing to have more of a balance between description and narration. Not too much—but more than Plutus, in any case. This creates a baseline of a reading pace, making it easier to control the intensity and ‘speed’ of the scene—filling it with more dialogue and narration making it flow quicker, filling it with more description making it flow slower.

For example, chapter five starts out with longer paragraphs than usual. Ariadne describes the hostage princess one of her caretakers/maids had accidentally upset during the current outdoor walk. As the princess comes to know of Ariadne’s identity as the only princess, the paragraphs quickly shorten into small one to two lines. Yunsul has changed the pacing. No more are the long paragraphs of descriptions and observations—Ariadne is panicking because she’s being handled by someone who she resents her father. Yunsul changed the pace of her writing to fit the mood of the scene, to put emphasis on the intensity of Ariadne’s emotional state. Everything is intentional, everything has meaning. This is what a writer does. The paragraphs then return once she hears her father’s voice, but there are still smaller lines balanced between them—because while his appearance has shocked Ariadne, she’s still very on edge.

The rhythm of Yunsul’s writing reflects her intention as a writer. In comparison to the examples of Plutus’ writing from my other post, it is better—finding Plutus’ baseline to be odd, with often random strings of single-liners without purpose that could easily be combined in a paragraph because of their topic relation, to extremely short paragraphs which also confused me. I couldn’t ever really understand why Plutus was spacing such short lines and sentences like so. It were as if Plutus had been writing WMMAP on their phone—where short lines and sentences feel longer than they are because of the smaller, crowded, screen. It isn’t a bad thing per se, but it forces the writer to pace things differently—especially if the writer plans to publish physically, I feel, which both writers have. Smaller screens force you to pace things quickly because of how crowded it looks on the phone, but when you write it out onto the computer or upon a page it looks much more empty and spaced. The writer’s rhythm and pacing is reformatted, which changes and disrupts the writer’s intent.

You’d never find a story where the baby female lead’s deceased mom was a foreigner, first of all. You’d never find a story where the female lead’s maid/nanny had a connection to the female lead’s deceased mother—usually the supporting maid isn’t even an adult, they’re typically a peppy young teenager serving the child lead. In addition to that, I have NEVER read another story in the rofan genre where the half-sibling rival wasn’t actually a half-sibling, but the bastard of the evil relative raised to think they’re half-siblings with the lead. Like huh? That’s not even a trope—no other rofan stories have done this. You’re going to say all of these elements in a newly released story wouldn’t have you think of WMMAP right away? Like it’s not just the “oh it’s a tyrant’s daughter novel”, it’s literally that and every other similarity in addition to it!

And that’s not even going into the fact that what’s also uncanny is the writing itself! Athy was so beloved at the time because her behavior was ‘refreshing’—that in the genre of rofan back then, if there was a villainous/tyrant guardian, the female lead would react in fear but Athy reacted in anger, calling said oppressive tyrant bratty names. That’s one of WMMAP’s hallmarks—but even that came from DOTE first! The insults are the same! How do you even do that? How do you copy almost all of the integral setting, character, relationship, and plot elements down to throwaway insults and claim it was all original, that it was all a coincidence? Before the tropes even existed!

I can’t believe that. As a reader, and as a writer, that’s impossible. If it was one or two things, sure—but if it’s the things that are so integral to the story and characters in it that taking them away would drastically change the story, all of them combined, that’s not original.

Just because you like WMMAP better or reason that it’s more popular doesn’t suddenly make it ok or make the case not matter. Speaking of it not mattering, so many people are saying that it’s old news that got settled via trial, but it never did! Carrotoon and Spoon took to trial what I believe fans’ comments and harassment—but in regard to Yunsul and Plutus, there was never a trial specifically between them on the plagiarism. To this day, Yunsul and her team have never been contacted for a trial—and they still face comments in regard to their relationship with WMMAP making them out to be bad guys when they were the originals!