I liked the start, silly character vignettes and stupid misunderstandings are my jam.
A shameless cute glutton mc and an ml that over complicates things in his head is a very charming set up.
But any time the author tried in incorporate plot or world building I hated it. Once the mc and ml left the jungle of character moments and could communicate with each other, I knew it was a matter of time before I dropped it.
And sure enough.
It lost a lot of my goodwill by kicking off the greater conspiratorial plot with a giant victim blaming SA disaster.
The ml is currently being impersonated and slandered, the most damning part of which is a character who was assaulted by the impersonator so brutally they were permanently disfigured.
When it comes to light that the ml has a solid alibi- being in a charming comedy set up this entire time on a remote planet- any and all mention of the impersonator is dropped in favor of ridiculing the victim for falling for it.
They're still in a wheel chair, but the author feels it's extremely important to point out that they're not even that good looking, and the ml is so handsome that he surely wouldn't bother assaulting them when they could have anyone they wanted.
*gag*
And no I don't care if it turns out that the victim was in on the impersonation, because that isn't what the author thinks was most important to establish.
The narrative immediately swings to how sad and sympathetic and wronged the ml has been by these accusations (despite only witnessing about thirty seconds of scrutiny) and at the 40% mark, we have yet to return literally any concern on the assault that was on national television.
After that the story gains no points back.
The writing repeats over and over, ten times easily, that the mc looks underaged. To the point that the ml intentionally dresses the mc more maturely and encourages him to claim that he's actually juuuuust 18. WE know that the mc is over a hundred years old, and I'm not that stiff about fiction anyway. I just hate how scummy the ml is about this. He doesn't question it even for a moment, just hops right on grooming who he thinks is a child- even though this child saved his life.
EVEN THEN, I was reading. Victim blaming and under age creepiness are things I can muscle through if the reward is good enough.
But it wasn't.
The ml- again, after the mc saved his life with what is only understood to the ml as miraculous magical abilities- wants to send the mc to school because he can't read or write the language and baaaarely speaks it. But he doesn't want to send him to a school that would properly educate him on those things- because they would be resources for children and he doesn't want the mc to be acknowledged as underaged.
*gag*
So rather than hiring tutors and encouraging him to follow his dreams as repayment for all the mc has done for the ml, he lies to the mc and sends him to a homemaking university course for wealthy future socialites to train on being excellent brides.
For himself.
He states explicitly it's for himself.
To keep the mc away from competition and to teach him basic skills with an emphasis on pleasing husbands.
When the mc finds out IN THE MIDDLE OF CLASS, that this was not in fact the art course he'd been promised and he was being shown anatomy specific to the ml and how to better understand the ml, he was upset and humiliated. He was the only one in the class to not know what was going on.
The ml is scum.
He's guilty about it too, the author knows this was shitty to do. We just blow by it really really fast because it's more important that they get together as quickly as possible.
Anyway at this point, I've most definitely thought about about this longer than the author did before publishing. I dropped it and I'm not coming back.