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Ooooogh DUDE I meant to tell you before but your "Idc If You're The Male Lead" comic kept me on EDGE because it was so... REAL as someone who had Harem Isekai fatigue (even before discovering Villainess/Otome Isekai manhwa) and as someone who read older Shojo!

I specifically like reading older shojo because of how messy it is. But i'm mostly there for the shenanigans of the female lead rather than her guys. Because a loooot of them DO be trashy like "Haru" was.

It's part of why I loved Skip☆Beat (and maybe things like Depths of Malice) because of the unhingedness of the femC and her goal to take down creeps like that.

I'm sorrowful you couldn't complete the ten episodes thing ahead of time to finish but I wanna let you know nonetheless it really just ❤️❤️❤️ to me, yknow?

K thx

Thank you so much!

I'm sad too I couldn't finish it, because it does a lot of potential. I'm very happy the story was engaging!

I've read a lot of older shojo, and Haru is based on those ML's that you shake your head and think: is the FL serious?

btw I absolutely love Skip Beat! I actually started reading it in middle school when it first came out in the US. The only reason I had to stop reading it was because I had gotten to book 30 and had to go to college so I couldn't bring my books with me.

Kyouko is such a refreshing main character. Wish it got an anime remake, but it did have a drama!

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Hello, I hope you've had a pleasant day!

This is random but recently, I've been rereading two favorite manhwa of mine, Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story and My In Laws are Obsessed with Me, and as I've read them, I have been keeping This Isekai Maid on my mind, with the way the nobles are portrayed and how the maid characters are treated, and I was curious that, if you read them, what did you think of them.

In This Isekai Maid, you would usually mention at the chapter what manhwa it was critiquing, like Kill the Villainess or Villains are Destined to Die (I feel guilty for liking them because, they are good stories, but their flaws are also undeniable), but I can't remember if in any of the author's note you mentioned My In Laws or Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story.

I hope you have a good day!

Hello!

Please don't feel guilty for liking those two series. Even though I have issues with Death is the Only Ending for the Villainess/Villains are Destined to Die and Kill the Villainess they have good qualities. I just personally couldn't look past certain elements enough to fully enjoy them. But other people would feel differently, and that's fine!

As for the manhwa you mentioned, I've heard a lot of good things about "My In-Laws Are Obsessed With Me," but I don't think I'm very interested in reading it. I'm kind of burned out on black haired red eyed love interests.

The art style is very unique though, and it's great that it made a such a good impression not conforming to the standard Rofan aesthetic. It kind of reminds me of the art from Lady to Queen's early chapters with minimal to no hard secondary shading (which I wish were consistent throughout the story but ultimately it's the artists decision if they think adding more rendering would make the art look better).

As for "Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story"....I didn't really like it, sorry ( ; _ ; )

It felt very formulaic for me. It's not a terrible story or anything, I just didn't really feel compelled to finish it. I don't mention it in Isekai Maid because it follows a lot of tropes found in other Rofan stories, but it's nothing I would consider offensive. It's just kinda ok.

Spoilers for Not your typical reincarnation story below.

I read about 56 chapters of "Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story" before I had to drop it. It's beautifully drawn and I will be buying the physical edition when it comes out in English in January since owning physical media of comics I buy digitally is important to me. But I kept waiting for the story to reverse or subvert tropes commonly found in Otome Isekai and that never really came for me. Everything was exactly what I thought it would be.

Maybe it's because I've read Cheating Men Must Die and other world hopping stories, but the whole "system controls you/limits you" idea is something that I've personally seen a lot of, constraints and all.

And seeing the spoilers, it really does seem like a typical reincarnation story. Not a huge fan of the male lead either. And I wasn't super attached to Edith either as a character. I think the story would be stronger if she didn't stay married to him and found someone else. Especially with a title like that, I kind of expected her to not stick around and stay.

But that's just me putting my expectations on a work that never promised that to me, haha.

[catesartworks]

I really need to draw traditionally more I'm getting a bit rusty lol

Drawn in pencil, colored in procreate

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Episodes 120-122 are now available for all patrons! :D

Hello Everyone!

It's been a while, but I wanted to really give something to my patreon members! I will be uploading later chapters as downloadable pdf files (non scrolling format).

While I was working on the earlier chapters of "This Isekai Maid is Forming a Union", I decided to also work on formatting the later chapters into a proper comic format.

The reason is because I have to almost completely redo all the art at the beginning of the series to make it consistent with later chapters. Since the later chapters are more in line with the style I have now, they would be easier to format without having to redo too many panels!

I will in a sense go backwards. ( . 3 . ) Starting with later chapters. So the next batch should be chapters 119, 118 and 117.

Chapters 120, 121 and 122 are currently on my patreon for my paid members!

There are 56 total pages of content on three PDF files. I will be releasing these chapters to all patrons by August 8th. :D

If you have any difficulties, please let me know!

Link below!

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I'm on NamiComi Now!

Hello everyone!

I am uploading This Isekai Maid is Forming a Union! on NamiComi in addition to Tapastic and WEBTOON. :D

I'm still trying to get the hang of the interface, but I have a few episodes up haha

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This may sound like a dumb question but does time go on in the world where Bridgette exists? I mean, people age, political structures change or progress, if slowly. And when she isekais it's never into another universe but a different part and point in time of that same world.

I ask this since the conspiracy to make reincarnators develop modern appliances for the empire's advancement makes me feel as if the same progress is mention before stagnates the world or implies that the world is consistently in somewhere pseudo-medieval.

Especially since Nikolai, I think his name is remarks about our advanced society like it's something as fantastical as their world.

Like, are they (the reincarnators, citizens of Teffrah, Limpette, etc.) simply way behind at a certain point in time? Or is the world as it is, always? Will their world ever be one that resembles ours in the far future?

Mild spoilers for Isekai Maid below:

Yes, time does go on but very slowly. They have been stuck in the Victorian-esque era for a while (though they were slowly transitioning out of the Regency era forty years prior). They will reach our era in maybe 300 years at the current rate if nothing changes.

Reincarnators bring technology, but there's no incentive for the upper classes to make too many changes to the current conditions of the world around them so the tech is simply integrated into their society with little to no changes surrounding it.

Not to mention, reincarnators (at least at first) really like the Old Europe aesthetic with dresses and tea parties, so they aren't too concerned with trying to modernize. You also tend to find mismatched aesthetic clothing eras clashing because of reincarnators trying to introduce the "next" era of fashion too early or too late.

So you might get things like a stand mixer, or even modern copyright laws, but Victorian era working conditions and social structures.

It's why at the end of the season one (ep34) Bridgette remarks "how can this place be so advanced yet so backward?" In a way, with the amount of information they have and access to magic portals they SHOULD be more advanced than our world. But it's makes the upper classes more money to keep things how they are.

But it's not just reincarnators. The state of the world has been hampered by not only them, but also due to the presence of magic. Magic is very convenient, anyone can use it, but it's relationship with technology and science isn't always understood in purely observable means. It exists in a way where you have to take into account that magic exists as a fact when technology is made.

But because magic exists, it's hard at first for people in this world to distinguish between a magic material and one that is based on natural phenomena similar to our world.

see ep96 for example:

For example, borax and asbestos. In a world full of rocks and other natural materials that can be infused with magic, finding naturally occurring material suited for insulation and one for removing the smell from milk are seen as "magic" first. But these materials are dangerous to human health. Asbestos causes lung cancer and borax is a pesticide.

So when they look at our world from their perspective, our technology seems very fantastic. I guess this quote by Arthur C Clark says it best: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

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Hi there! :D

I've been rereading this isekai maid is forming a union and I absolutely adore it. I love the art style, the rep, the plot!! Is there a character reference sheet for fanart?

Hello!

Thank you for reading Isekai Maid! I use color swatches and sometimes outfit references for characters.

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"This Isekai Maid is Forming a Union!" episode 122 is up on both WEBTOON and Tapas

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Dunno if anyone had already asked you this but why does fake!Phoebe think that just because reincarnator!Clara is a maid, she can just treat her so poorly? I mean, she *knows* she's a reincarnator too who didn't really have awareness at that time, but she keeps acting like her life doesn't matter or isn't real despite being another "real" person in this world she's in.

Does she think other lives just kind of stop when she isn't paying them any attention, and that's why she thinks after all she did, she can just try to extort her as Bridgette?

And also in her original life, as Helen, was she always racist and classist? I think i remember she reincarnated from 2014 and remarked about things like "this is how things are supposed to be" when watching those new Regency era lavish movies. I also say this cus issues of racism in the 2010s were more glossed over and subtle without many realizing it.

The reason Phoebe treats Clara so poorly is because she is operating on two ideas: That Clara took what was OG!Phoebe's (love, attention, a good ending) and that as a housemaid her duty was to be at her disposal. Clara isn't playing along with her fantasy, which irritates Phoebe even more than if she was just like in the novel.

The thing about Otome Isekai/Rofan is that most maid characters don't have much inner life outside of the protagonist. They only exist as props or obstacles. Even if they have their own reasons to be the way they are (like Mina from I am the Real One, if I was in her shoes I would be pissed me and my brother were living in poverty while Keira uses peoples tax money to buy airships for a date but that's just my view) it's brushed over so that the protagonist has a win over them.

Phoebe most likely doesn't think any sort of inner life of Bridgette's is as important or deep as hers. She's basing it off the relatively light writing of maid characters in the genre and how dependent they "should" be on nobles like her. She didn't really care that Clara was a reincarnator because she's lower class. In fact, it made her even more wary of her because she was afraid she would use future knowledge to gain the upper hand or try to improve her position. But on some level, I think Phoebe missed Clara as a fellow reincarnator and "real person" (not like she'd ever admit it, though).

Phoebe is also upset that the setting she reincarnated into, Teffrah, isn't all white like her favorite disney movies portrayed Europe to be (think movies like the Little Mermaid, Cinderella, the Tangled movie and the first Frozen movie) or European period dramas she watched. So she is taking it out on Bridgette/Clara for basically existing in her perfect fantasy world where she was supposed to be pretend people of color didn't exist.

This hasn't been mentioned in story yet, but a lot of the targeted hate for Clara wasn't only due to her being a female character who "got in Phoebe's way", it's also because Clara was described as having brown skin instead of pale skin.

Many readers ignored her novel description and imagined her as white anyway. When she was finally illustrated, some racist readers further harassed the author (who was already being harrassed for "favoring" Clara over Phoebe) for not conforming to their vision of what kind of people should exist in their European fantasy setting. It made them hate Clara even more.

So yes, Phoebe was pretty racist in general already. She was probably pretty active in the disney fandom, which was rife with racism in 2014 online circles when she died and still is.

As for her classism, she was actually lower middle class in her first life as a child. She wasn't rich by any means growing up. But she did end up making a good living with her bakery job and was able to come into some money later on.

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Hey there! I have really enjoyed reading "this isekai maid is forming a union" both on its own merits as a well-told story, and also because it has helped me to identify and think more carefully/critically about moments in other rofan comics. I also got my brother to read it, and he's been having a blast with it - he doesn't usually like rofan at all (understandable, he's not exactly the target audience) and he isn't as tuned-in to the popular tropes of the genre as I am (though he is still painfully aware of less specialized isekai tropes), so I thought you might like to know that Isekai Maid Union is resonating with people even outside its context as a deconstruction of this very specific genre

Thank you so much! I'm super happy that Isekai Maid was able to reach more people like your brother. I hope he continues to enjoy it!

When I first started Isekai Maid, I was concerned what I was writing was too niche. So I'm glad the story is enjoyable outside of it's status as a deconstruction. :D

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Hello Everyone!

It's been a while, but I wanted to really give something to my patreon members! I will be uploading later chapters as downloadable pdf files (non scrolling format).

While I was working on the earlier chapters of "This Isekai Maid is Forming a Union", I decided to also work on formatting the later chapters into a proper comic format.

The reason is because I have to almost completely redo all the art at the beginning of the series to make it consistent with later chapters. Since the later chapters are more in line with the style I have now, they would be easier to format without having to redo too many panels!

I will in a sense go backwards. ( . 3 . ) Starting with later chapters. So the next batch should be chapters 119, 118 and 117.

Chapters 120, 121 and 122 are currently on my patreon for my paid members!

There are 56 total pages of content on three PDF files. I will be releasing these chapters to all patrons by August 8th. :D

If you have any difficulties, please let me know!

Link below!

[catesartworks]

Hello! I just read the most recent chapter of This Isekai Maid is forming a union and I love it so much!

And while I love it very much, I need to make a confession: I did not except to like it. I fully expected to be a parody or weird, simply not being able to click with it, or straight up thought it wouldn't be good.

I started reading RoFan manhwa in 2023, with the series Like Wind on a Dry Branch (i need to finish that), completely falling in love with the story and then i went directly into the rofan rabbit hole. And in that rabbit hole, my second manhwa ever was The Remarried Empress and so on.

So, in the last two years since i started, while i am not an expert by any means, I've gone through a lot of slop and read manhwa that seemed interesting but for one reason or another, had this tropes that just rubbed me the wrong way, or stories where i would scream "WHY IS THE AUTHOR DOING THIS, GIRL RUN!!", keep reading more because I didn't want to accidently miss that one good manhwa among all the bad ones, and as i kept going, a little part of my brain started saying "maybe this is just how it is. maybe these authors just don't want to do anything different. or they can't. or are unable to. it's fine, as long as i can think critical and be able to identify what's okay and what's not, it's fine. I just need to turn off my brain every once in a while." and while i was always aware of this, i didn't really realize just how deep in went until i started This Isekai Maid on a whim.

It's a weird thing to admit, but you know when people say "you are not immune to propaganda" and you are like "duh, anyone who thinks they are, is already in its clutches"? Well, that was me. I've read multiple posts talking about all the common tropes and cliches that rofan mahwa have, would nod my head and take notes, and I would TRY to think it critically and then patted my own shoulder when i thought I did a good job.

Reading this series was like someone grab their heavist boot, whose sole read "YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE", and threw it right on my nose.

in fact, that "screenshot" of the readers of the novel where Bridgette was Fawn (I forgot the name of that novel), where basically the readers were fighting over morality and saying things like "I never said it was okay" or "media literacy is dead!", I remember cringing from embarrasment because, while I don't like writing comments in general, i could see myself in them, from both sides.

I'm a comparative literature student and some of the things our professors taught us are that novels don't dictate morality, fiction is fiction, readers have critical thought, that sort of thing. So conversations about the trending manhwa stories and comics like yours are interesting and also mightingly frustrating to get a clear answer from because, on one hand, what my professors say is right, fiction is fiction, what a story does doesn't dictate is right, that sort of thing, but on the other hand, you are also right, some authors are a little too comfortable with the tropes they use and ignoring their implications, not thinking the characters are possible people and how they would behave in such settings, but as their dolls to do whatever they think is interesting (which is valid but i digress). There's such a fine, fine line between this things and, gah, it's getting difficult to explain.

Back to my main point. Reading your comic reminded me a lot of my experience with anime. Before lockdown, i was extremely against it and whenever someone wanted to recommend me a show, i would immediately shot it down if it was anime, thinking they were all like Darling in the Franxx (my sole experience with anime at the time that left, not traumatized, but also not okay). It wasn't until i actually sat down and started watching shows that i realized i was being prejudiced. And just like that anime, I took a single look at this comic, it's premise and the fact that it was from the US (probably), so not a "real" manhwa and decided it simply wouldn't be good.

I wish, from the bottom of my heart, to apologize for that.

There is so much about this comic that I love, i would need to make an entirely different ask. There is so much detail, the worldbuilding is awe inspiring and my jaw keeps dropping when it keeps expanding and it seemlessly clicks with the rest of the story, Marina is my favorite character and she's so dear to me, I cheered when I saw little Claire, at such a young age, being able to find herself despite her situation and her birth mother, taking charge to who and how she wanted to be, the artstyle has me wanting to (metaphorically) rub my cheeks against it like a soft blanket, the way you draw kids with their outfits and expressions make me wish there were stickers to put on my laptop, i love how every character is so real, how every cliche is desconstructed and examined upon, how so many sh*tty tropes are grabbed by the throat and is screamed at "why are you here?! why do you keep doing this?! why don't you learn?!"

I await every update with bated breath, I am bullying (affectionaly) my friends to start it, I am so happy you decided to write this comic! Thank you so much!

(I apologize for all the mean things I said. I wanted to be as honest as possible, but I know how it can't be difficult to express through the internet/writing, so once more: i was prejudiced and wrong when i came across your comic and your story made me realize it by just being unabashedly itself. thank you.)

Hello! Wow, being a comparative literature student sounds awesome. What your talking about (being apprehensive about a story, or medium) is something a lot of people do. Personally, I do it all the time, so it's not offensive if you didn't like Isekai Maid at first or had certain impressions of it. It's pretty common.

I think there are so many different takeaways from literature, but one of the best things is that it is a time capsule and look into the culture of the person reading it. Or how they interpret the culture of the story they write.

Genres like Otome Isekai, which are built off of many different pieces of media (period dramas, shojo manga, video games) become saturated when tropes and plot devices are repeatedly used. If one story uses it and it's popular, it will be copied and that will also spawn copies.

It's what the show and titular character, Bojack Horseman (a good show about the entertainment industry and explores very dark themes), states that he himself is "a xerox of a xerox." Which in itself is about the inherent rehashing of ideas, stories, phrases through multiple people to the point it is depersonalized and sometimes loses the meaning that it initially had. In essence, trying to recapture what makes something so beloved to the point it loses meaning.

Thinking about it like this, you can come across tropes that were made to fill quotas without taking into consideration the context surrounding it and why it is used. Sometimes they're used as a means of giving an easy obstacle to the protagonist (evil maid, gossiping noble). Sometimes they're there because it is mandatory to gain the highest amount of viewers (like the isekai aspect being dropped/not mattering after five chapters).

So a lot of stories end up being filled with implications due to the author not researching important historical implications of the setting they chose, or losing track of character development and making them react inconsistently. But it's also a look into what the author thinks is acceptable and appealing, and what they think the audience might want from the story, based on what they themselves value most and what is considered an accomplishment by societal standards.

I guess that's why I wrote Isekai Maid, to ask these questions. But I'm very happy you love the comic, and I really appreciate your perspective too! ( ^ _ ^ )

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"This Isekai Maid is Forming a Union!" episode 122 is up on both WEBTOON and Tapas

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"This Isekai Maid is Forming a Union!" Episode 121 is out now~

WEBTOON CANVAS

Tapas

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Hello! I've been wondering for a while: what's the problem in the Abandonned Empress? I've never read it and one of my siblings told me the Emperor had been brainwashed so "he wasn't really responsible" or something (I have mixed feelings about this trope, but if used well it can work I guess) but since we don't always have the same taste/demands and don't always agree, I was curious to know your explanation! Especially after discovering "Only death awaits the Villainess", at first, it looked interesting and I was wondering why it was familiar until I got to THE moment EW EW EW!! 🫣😖

Hi there! Thanks for the ask.

This is going to be a long post, and I talk about s//exual a/ssault. You can read it under the cut

tl;dr: Ruve is just awful, Jieun deserved better and Aristia was in denial until the very end

I think that what makes the Abandoned Empress so heinous is it's insistence that the woman who is domestically abused needs to overcome her abuse so she can give her ra//pist a second chance. Sure, time travel doesn't exist in real life. But how many times have abusers assured their victims through love bombing and manipulation that they "have totally changed" and they deserve a second chance? This is that kind of mentality personified in manhwa form.

Ruve in the first timeline was a ra//pist, physically and emotionally abused Aristia while she was pregnant, disowned the resulting child and basically called the child worthless, knocked her over causing her a miscarriage and never apologized for it, killed her father, made her lick his shoes and then beheaded her.

The story has Aristia (and Jieun) be the only ones who remember the abuse from the first timeline. It's so disturbing that it gives a clean slate to Ruve, who doesn't have to actually reflect on his actions or change because the "right woman" will change him. He doesn't have to do anything himself, because the woman he hated for being cold has changed herself to suit his needs. Then it all naturally comes together because he will want to dote on someone who pleases him.

And Jieun, who was emotional and upbeat in the first timeline but because of her trauma (that Ruve and Duke Zena inflicted) and abandonment by Ruve is now colder, she is the one he casts aside since she is no longer his preference.

The entire world (or the god, Vita) seems to revolve around making sure Ruve is happy and gets whatever he pleases, even if he has to turn time to do it. Aristia exists as a literal substitute for Jieun (Vita told her himself), who was accidentally born on Earth instead of Aristia's world. Her emotions and love for Ruve are manufactured. This is never interrogated in sincerity because she ends up being with him anyway.

Despite Ruve destroying Aristia and Jieun's life in the other timeline, he is granted innocence, despite having all the traits that indicate a person who doesn't respect Aristia in this timeline either. He ignores her request to end the engagement (portrayed as romantic), and goes through her personal belongings. He raises his voice at her to the point she becomes catatonic because of the trauma she has faced (from HIM). And then, he says afterwards as if to ask the audience "what did I even do to her to deserve this? :,((("

The audience knows. Aristia and Jieun know. But because he needs to be innocent he can't know.

And being drugged isn't a good excuse. Because drugs don't make a person target a specific individual and abuse them. Ruve already hated Aristia. And Aristia herself didn't experience the same symptoms. Why didn't she target Jieun, or Ruve himself with the same level of abuse if that is so? She reacted just like anyone else would when she stabbed him. He killed her DAD. She wasn't paranoid, had headaches, or becoming dependent on the tea that had the drugs in it.

That also begs the question that if Ruve becomes addicted to a substance in this lifetime, or he becomes dependent on alcohol, or any other type of drug then the abuse will most likely happen again. Since he is in an important position that comes with a lot of stress (the emperor of a nation), this might happen sooner rather than later.

And this isn't talked about a lot, and I don't think I've seen this mentioned. But there is something so skeevy about an adult white man taking a teenage East Asian high school girl as a wife, abusing her, and then discarding her like she was nothing to the point she is forever scarred. And the story being on his side throughout it and making sure he's given everything he wants. No, it's JIEUN who dared to get abused in a world she was forcibly isekai'd into and not change to suit him!

One of the most fascinating episodes is Season 3 episode 44 (Tappytoon version) which encapsulates the mentality of this whole story: It's all Jieun's fault, and Ruve was just totally trying his best uwu.

Jieun tries to explain to Aristia that she owes Ruve nothing and that she should get revenge for her family that Ruve executed in the first timeline. Aristia says no, because he hasn't done anything yet and it would risk her family. While that is understandable, Aristia insists that the present and past timeline Ruve are completely different people. They're not. They are the same person, and capable of making the same choices.

In the first timeline, Ruve said he would spare Aristia's father if she licked his shoes. She did, but he told her he had already executed him. Then he goes onto behead her. This is the image of our male lead. The shoe licking is a manhwa addition, but everything else is also in the novel.

Jieun: "In the end, he used both you and me. You submitted yourself to him your whole life, and I was tool to hurt you, the one he hated the most."

Aristia: "I already knew that he was a selfish man. I'm not trying to defend him."

And yet, in her narration, she is doing nothing but that. As if to block out what Jieun is trying to tell her, she makes up excuse after excuse for the first timeline version of the man who repeatedly tormented her.

She states "I can guess the tragedy they [Jieun and Ruve] without hearing the rest. He never received love, so he didn't know how to love. And Jieun received love, but didn't know how to give it back. He never looked at me once when I yearned for him so much yet he wanted me after everything was over?"

She refuses to acknowledge that this Ruve is just as capable of harming her as the past version of himself. In Season 3, episode 57 when Jieun explains that Ruve abandoned her just before she gave birth to run away, Aristia internally thinks:

"He probably had no choice but to leave the capital. The moment an heir was born, he'd be good as dead. Perhaps he had no choice but to leave with his army, even though he knew it was a gamble. He gathered what was left of his soldiers to protect himself, Jieun and his child."

Jieun was murdered after birthing a girl. She had no time to recover. And yet, Aristia doesn't bat an eye.

Aristia is not able, even now, to realize the extent of first timeline Ruve's cowardice and selfishness. She says she doesn't excuse him but she does. And Jieun, being observant makes this statement in season 3 episode 44:

"You're just making up excuses to about him being different because you want to love him again."

And Aristia, not realizing the insanity of this response says that he won't hurt her again "because I've changed."

Ruve doesn't have to do anything. It's all on his abuse victims.

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How was Haena Soo in the original timeline? Was she genuinely terrible, or was Christina just being delusional?

warning: mentions of slavery and abuse

Haena was good person, but she was a bit naive and sheltered from the real issues of the empire by the emperor.

Christina saw her as the main factor of the emperor hating her, though he's always mistreated Christina since she was young. Haena Soo was the Saintess, loved by everyone automatically while Christina struggled to connect with others. She saw Haena as a lazy, spoiled girl who enjoyed all the attention she didn't earn and would probably get the Empress's position by the emperor's favor.

Which is why in the second timeline Christina orchestrated incidents to shatter Haena's view of the empire and show that she wasn't "suitable to be empress". First by showing Haena a slave being beaten to death for "attempting to harm the emperor" (which happened in the last timeline but Haena didn't see) And then by inviting the slave owner who beat the slave to the palace so that Haena would make a scene at a ball.

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Could we get a look at the model you use for the outside of the Ander's estate? I want to make some fan art but I got stuck rereading the whole comic again to find references ;-;

Here you go!