Oh my gosh, that's one of my favorite tropes!

...

Oh no! That's one of my favorite tropes!

So you just want a character who acts flippantly towards those around them and takes nothing in their story seriously??

That could just as easily be done with the main character having a vision of the future or being given a second chance, and those methods don't involve removing the actual character from the setting to get a bland replacement inherently removed from the plot.

But unfortunately we live in a world of trend chasing copycats and it always sells stupid amounts, so we'll have to live with it for so much longer

And every time I see another amazing premise and watch it rapidly decay into a generic cookie cutter slice of life romcom I'll die a bit more inside

It's the same for every single one. Cut the reincarnation dressing and suddenly every plot becomes so much more interesting, and they'll never run into the issue of invalidating everything with a "I'm not actually X" reveal that invalidates the entire plot up to that point.

You aren't reading "I'm in love with the villainess" for the reincarnation plot of Rei Ohashi, you're reading it because you want to see a goody two shoes goofball heroine Rae Taylor and the cold villainess Claire François as star crossed lovers fighting fate and growing into better people.

And nobody fucking buys it for the reincarnation aspect either. Most of the time it's not written in the title! They'll catch you with an interesting premise, so you bite and pick it up

You crack it open and the first line is "oopsie I'm in this otome game I fell asleep reading, how silly"

They make a reincarnation story and it's NEVER about the person actually adapting to living a whole new life, they invariably have an encyclopedic knowledge of their new life, they have the exact same name and appearance in their new life, WHY NOT JUST CUT THE REINCARNATION ASPECT FROM THE PLOT THEN

No, I don't care that a soft loser took the place of the main character of the story you're ACTUALLY trying to sell me on. I want to see the villainess she reincarnated as! I want to see the original version of this person face their own story and consequences, not some random nobody in her place!

They ALWAYS reveal it early because if it's at the end of the series it invalidates all the growth and change the mc PRETENDS to go through, so the reveal is never more than halfway through the story (at best) and the rest punts its cool unique premise out the fucking window for a cookie cutter plot

Cool and thoughtful story where the villainess is foretold of her death and has change to avoid it, realizing that being nice and having friends is better than being a cold bitch: ❌

Random nobody acts totally different and the love interest finds out instantly so there's no problems or drama: ✅

Finally, Switch 2

my gf kept making fun of me for getting horny about making sexualized legal documents when we used to play an erp game… im a suuuccubuss okayy i like contracts!!! hmpft

Yeah, I kinda walked right into that one

What does a Witch of Secrets even do

When you know it's supposed to be read "Secret Switch" but just can't prove it

This is based in a true story but I won't tell you~