the gods mess around with the MC at their leisure, as it took away agency from the MC and made the story pretty boring past the first few times it happened, which wasn't helped by it coinciding with an academy arc, and those are always a drag past the first few dozen chapters

You can reasonably widely separate the story into 3 Arcs. The first arc being about Academy life and such, this is where Lucy meets most of her companions. The second arc is about Lucy's battle against the Kingdom, facing a king that fears death. And the final arc is about the final battle against the Evil Gods. Unlike the 1st and 2nd arc, which are held almost exclusively at the Academy or within the kingdom, the 3rd arc is at a much larger scale. Lucy is the only one with cheat-like game knowledge of the dungeons and bosses and must lead an entire continent to fight against the Pope and the rest of the evil villains

For example, At the Duke Burrow's mansion. Or during her mother's death anniversary, Lucy cries and mourns her mother sincerely. Even though the MC technically doesn't even know her. As readers we get to see both Lucy's own POV. As well as a 3rd person pov when Lucy wails and is carried home by her father infront of all her family servants and knights. A moment where her companions first realize Lucy's inner vulnerability (although some had their suspicions before). During the dungeon creation part when Lucy was given the assignment to the final exam dungeon, her excitement and anticipation seemed entirely from the MC. Sometimes, even in her mind, speaks and acts as a mesugaki, almost like the lines between the past Lucy and the present are blurring.

The story is mostly on Lucy fighting against the evil gods, partly because she's Jushin/Armadi's apostle (later revealed that Lucy is literally Armadi's daughter) and mainly because she has beef with Agra (he's the big bad in this novel, and leader of the evil gods, representing the end) because of the various good deeds she does (in classic 'evil god' fashion)

this is my rant about the “romance (?) ” of this series. Frankly if it did not exist it would be a 5/5. First of all the “shoujo ai” tag here is misleading since til the end both the MC and her friends only saw each other as just that. Friends. Well currently Arthur is a bit ambiguous but it is leaning more towards admiration than anything else. In the case of Joy its more like a bestfriend kind of deal rather than romance.

I called it half baked because there is a genuine attempt at romance with the first prince. The first prince is Lucy's first friend, the only person that understood her during Lucy’s most troubling times, and the only person that treated her well in the past. In fact Lucy’s interaction with the first prince in the final battle and during the conclusion shows that there is genuine interest as a partner. In fact Lucy herself feels some kind of feelings whenever she sees him back when she does not remember him. There is even no directly stated aversion by Lucy to being with him.

I called it half baked because this relationship is never develop aside from snippets, and even then there were confusing aspects. Big example of such head scratch is when Lucy called the first prince “a coward” for leaving her, while it can be seen that it was Lucy who pushed him away to protect him and even then He still approached her despite that. Even when Lucy told him that she forgot about him, he still went to her house despite getting hurt. Clearly showing effort to be with her. A far cry for being a “coward”. You can argue that the first prince heed the first queen’s words thats why he is a coward but literally the same chapter he defied those words and still met with Lucy. Thats why I was so confused when she called him a coward.

I fear this half baked nature stems from the comment section in novelpia. The Tl:dr context: Korean internet is very old fashioned in relationships, they don’t like the male to male if you know what I mean. Since this is a gender bender there is great aversion with the first pince being the love interest which sadly can be seen in the comment section on chapters there is a sweet moment between them.

Sadly I can only hope there is good progress in the after stories regarding this, but I dont know when those will be finished since it would seem the author is delaying the end.