Cassmire: The Loyal Sword

The premise for the story is interesting, and I want to say it is all pretty good until after she enters the dukes mansion, after that the story devolves into the bad isekai and haram troupes, corsets = evil, the FL knows the future even if the future has changed, every character is a cheerleader to the FL and they have no personality outside of loving her, and no job outside of becoming good enough for her, etc.

Its not the worst I have read, its just disappointing since it started out interesting and the author put in all this backstory for all these characters and it isn't there to flush out characters but its only there to show the audience how important the FL is, just in case you couldn't tell from the amount of cheerleaders she has.

For example the FL's sister, instead of her getting a character arc that allows her to gain a family within her sisters family, we are left with the harem troupe of a siscon. No one in the family, as of chapter 80, likes anyone except the FL, it is such a waste.

Even the FL's older brother only exist so the author can say the FL, "as a women" is far more suitable to be head of the family instead of her you know genius brother.

This is right up there with the shounen isekai harems where all the girls are desperate to be the ML's slave girl and none of them have a personality outside of pleasing the ML.

I originally liked the story, but the MCs clueless regarding all the men in love with her is irritating. Putting this on the shelf for now. I might pick it up again later.

TL;DR: Not great, but passes the time.

This series is very tropey, basically almost every cliche of the genre is present. The reverse harem candidates are all children she saved on different occasions in the past. The laziest of backgrounds possible, times 4.

The FL is dense and friend zones everyone all the time, it is just dumb, because harems have to be dumb. I don't even want to spend time thinking about the MLs because clearly the author didn't bother.

The family dynamic is also a cliche at this point, but it is amusing and wholesome.

The art is pretty good and does a lot of heavy lifting.

One exception to the tropey nature of the series is the FL is not an amazing sword master that looks like a dainty flower. She is battle scarred and has a reasonable figure, dresses elegantly, but comfortably. Etc. She is still a Marry Sue, but a cooler looking one.

so stupid, it's regrettable since it has good potential.

If there is one thing you can trust Korean authors to do 90% of the time, its to take a good premise and shit cliches all over it, like what was done here.

The only two things that are good in this is the sister and the fact that she doesn't wear dresses. That's it.

Now, the bad stuff. Theres just, so much of it. The Reverse Harem is basic as all hell, the potential mLs adhere almost perfectly to cliches we've all seen 80 times before (I wish I was exaggerating...), the FL's intelligence varies by what would be the most convenient to introduce the next cliche. Like, absolutely no way someone with that little brainpower managed to become a veteran mercenary through a secret identity and not get caught... I could keep ranting, but I really can't be bothered. I just wanna finish writing this review and forget that this webtoon ever existed.

I love how strong the FL is. She truly loves her sister and has gone through a lot to provide for her. I found it to be a very touching relationship. Her relationship with her Father was also done well. The only thing I'm a little unhappy about is the fact that all the MLs fall for her. I was hoping we'd get to see Aria get some love too.

People complaining about how they've written a male character and just swapped the gender, aren't really paying attention. It's explained that her strength is due to her Mana stores and she lacks the endurance of a man. It's a vital point that her father seeks to rectify later. And the fact is that she's defying society's expectations by her clothing and her way of life, she's even faced flak for it, but had some powerful supporters to push her way through.

I think she has a really fun personality and her confidence is like a breath of fresh air in OI genre where FLs are always second guessing themselves.

Main cast is good. Funny and good art.

Screw the other reviews. Just read it. Most people will enjoy it.

Writing Tip: Never, ever write a female character like a male but change the pronouns and/or "just write us like a normal person!" (Usually said by well meaning, frustrated women.)

Uh, no. 99.9% of the time the person thinking/saying this has their baseline normal set as "straighter than a ruler" and "male". It's often unconscious, too. (Even after becoming aware of this insidious bias, they'll still fall into the trap of this way of thinking.) Because you'll get into messes like this.

It seriously reads like a (very badly written) yaoi harem Isekai. Like, the writer actually DID write yaoi but wanted to make it less controversial and more "appealing" to the masses by turning the MC into a woman WITHOUT the tedious process of changing the other story elements that would have made this flow so, so, so much better.

The whole changing gender BS is really hard to pull off correctly. The writer for the story doesn't have an interesting enough world building, cast and what frankly reads like personal willingness to pull it off.

Too bad. They'd rather keep the muuuuch safer lesbian baiting in there than gay baiting, if the MC was made male. It's still offensive and queer baiting all around but ugh, like this, it's sliiiiiightly less so. I'm disappointed.