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the villianess turns the hourglass (악녀는 모래시계를 되돌린다) is a pretty generic villianess revenge and fall in love type story.

in her past life, aria was a known wicked villianness whose life ended following accusations of treason. before her execution, mielle, her step sister, reveals she was the one who plotted her downfall, pulling the strings for years. following her death, aria travels back in time before mielle started to plot her downfall, seemingly with the help of a strange hourglass. aria vows to use her second chance at life to enact revenge on those who have wronged her in her previous life and to do ... everything she can to prevent her death.

despite the fact that the character of aria is seemingly stressed about her potential upcoming death, the story never feels like this is an actual possibility.

aria is not in a bad position when she is reincarnated (the worst she has to face is some nasty rumors about her 12 year old self and a bad birthday party the previous year). while she may have slightly mistreated her maids in the past, she was never abusive and was easily able to win their favour again. her mother is still married to the count and is respected among the maids and butlers within the mansion, ordering them when the count is on vacation.the count, while not being a great father, doesn't seem to abusive or terrible ( the worst may be telling others that aria's ideas were mielle).

as soon as aria was reincarnated, she worked hard to improve herself, academically and socially. very early on in the story, it becomes quite apparent that mielle is way behind aria in this way and can only support herself through her connections and her the favor from the count. mielle is not smart and very predictable. for the "big bad antagonist," mielle appears as a very non-threat.

additionally, once her secret love interest's identity is revealed, the small stakes that existed, completely diminished and solidified that aria was completely safe from execution and could enact her revenge on her sister.

there isn't a good place to mention this, but this manwha has great artwork. there are several multi-panel vertical artworks that are jaw dropping.

all in all, the villianess turns the hourglass is just another villianess story with some added politics and magic. if you are looking for originality, look elsewhere, but if you like these type of stories, i recommend reading.