A silly beauty of a bottom x a top who hides his true nature
At the end of the story, the protagonists overcome every obstacle and finally live happily together. And then?
Then reality grinds them down.
But that has nothing to do with the cannon-fodder bottom who was a thorn in their side.
Because he's come to his senses and decided to stay away from the protagonists and the cannon-fodder top he married in a sham marriage, and live for himself.
A look back.
It's the sort of match-making fiction you find in novels, where it doesn't matter whether the people being paired off are happy.
The bottom is a beautiful, devoted cannon-fodder character in an angsty romance.
He and the protagonist top grew up together as childhood sweethearts. He's written as being deeply in love with the powerful protagonist top, willing to risk his life and give away his entire fortune for him. But the protagonist top only loves the protagonist bottom, who has his own army of cannon-fodder admirers: number one, number two, and number three.
After going around and around in a melodramatic mess, the story's biggest obstacle, the devoted cannon-fodder bottom, uses his impressive family background to threaten the most prominent of the protagonist bottom's admirers, cannon-fodder top number one, into marrying him. This clears the biggest obstacle on the protagonist couple's path to a happy ending.
Fast-forward to the finale: the cannon-fodder bottom and the lovesick top are paired off in a political marriage, united in name but not in heart.
One is deeply in love with the protagonist top, while the other can't forget the protagonist bottom. They grieve, get moved, gaze up at the sky at a 45-degree angle, and watch the protagonists' beautiful romance, most likely spending the rest of their lives in misery.
Except that after only half a year of misery, the cannon-fodder bottom suddenly wakes up.
He breaks free of his seemingly manipulated behavior and reflects on his life as a tool: I'm beautiful and rich. Why am I suffering like this in a brainless novel?
I'm tired.
Let's burn it all down.
Notes:
1. Bottom's point of view.
2. The lovesick top doesn't pine after the original story's bottom.
3. Russian nesting dolls: a sweet romance inside an angsty story, with an unconventional marriage-first, love-later setup.
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--- Second version of the blurb, April 23, 2023
Theme: Love yourself.
The Withered Revives
Dear, You Haven't Spoken to Me in Three Days
The Quarantine Zone
A Thorn in My Throat
The Strange Tales Research Society
At the End of the Road [Apocalypse]
Respectful as Ice
Bad Kids
Searching for Willow
I'm This Good-Looking and Nice, So What?
No Thoughts [Cultivation]
Love's Madness