#ikevil thoughts

[nashthelime]

Ya'll they are making me ill

[bontu-the-l0ver]

I hope you guys like my one minute investigation on the curse of Ikemen villains

[mneiai]

What's your rating of Ikevil suitors?

Hmm okay I've been holding off on this because I'm on the fence about a few of them, but here goes lol I'm leaving off the newest guys because while I've got high hopes for the one, I don't know enough about any of them.

I'll go in rating order:

Elbert: 9/10

Love this guy, just such a traumatized little meow meow and eventual cannibal (used to think he's equally likely to stuff or eat MC if she died first, now leaning more towards eating her). I dislike his power in the grand scheme of things, seems like they thought of his backstory/trauma and then created a power to work well with that instead of the other way around and didn't really think through that power. Not actually that big of a fan of his looks, alas, firstly because I don't think he's drawn particularly more beautiful than most of the others despite what everyone says about him in canon and secondly blonde hair and blue eyes is blah to me. If he looked more like Ellis he'd be perfect. Only real yandere so far and the reason I started playing the game.

Ellis: 8/10

Love his looks, love his relationships with Jude and some of the others. His power is ridiculously bad and I'm constantly bummed out he's not darker than he is--they kept giving these like creepy phrases and dark looks and then he ends up being pretty green flag, actually. Like he thinks dark thoughts, but would never act on them. He's a bit darker in some events, at least. Also I like the juxtaposition of how he wants to make everyone happy with being a cold blooded killer.

Victor: 7/10

There's only so high I can rate the guys whose English routes haven't been released yet and some of the spoilers I've read make me a little worried. His constant hot and cold is pretty frustrating (like the recent election epilogue ugh). I like most of his character design and like the mystery, the political power, the way he's a total mom and so indulgent about even the worst aspects of his boys. But ugh monarchists, why did they all have to be monarchists?

William: 7/10

My major problem with William is the MC in his route, but that's not an issue with him personally. He's blessedly villainous compared to most of the others, was sort of a breath of fresh air coming off of some of the nicer guys' routes, and I like his looks a lot. He actually feels like a character that deserves to be in a game about Villains, like if this was a world like in US comic books or something he'd be a vigilante the other vigilantes thought of as a villain. His whole thing about freedom and how it's contradicted by his powers is also pretty fun.

Jude: 6/10

Well, in all his events and other routes, he comes across as hilariously tsundere, he clearly actually cares a lot about the people close to him but is a complete ass about it, which I don't mind since most of the others are so overtly caring. I like his looks (though not the smoking) and I'm hoping all his commentary on the MC being a masochist means we get some sadomasochism in his route. Though a little worried he'll be less villainous than I'm hoping.

Liam: 6/10

He's adorable! He's sweet! He's totally in need of modern mental health treatments! Someone give this guy a gacha game and you'll have solved half his issues, though. Honestly he has little impact on me because I like him, but similar stories if you take away the power/curse aspect are really common so it was just a little blah. Also insecurity in LIs is not something I personally like. Would have loved a platonic route with him most of all, though, that would have rocked so hard.

Harrison: 5/10

I like him decently and in another game, he'd probably be higher up, but as a starter LI in a game called "Ikemen Villains," I'm underwhelmed. If he were one of the later LIs, especially if he was more suspicious in more of the routes, I think he would have worked better. I don't know if he'll have a big part of the new LIs' routes, but I would love it if he did. In events, he's also normally pretty bland and a lot of them you could literally forget what game you're playing imo Would love to just be a group of platonic lifemates with him and Liam, though.

Roger: 4/10

I haven't read spoilers for his route except for the stuff related to his work and so all his personality and stuff comes from other routes/events. Those are a mixed bag, I love him when he's interacting with others, but I can't really get a handle on his actual personality, yet. Except for the glasses, I'm blah about his looks (he looks like he's the token American guy in a Dracula knock-off). Also wary of his curse and what it means for MC and how they're going to make that relationship go, I'm not a huge fan of the MC themselves being betrayed even if everyone else is, you know?

Alfons: 0/10

He's literally a rapist. Like he rapes the MC at the end of the very first chapter of his route! I thought the issue with his route was that thing where he pretends it was someone else that always comes up when people talk about it, I didn't realize he literally does the equivalent of roofying the MC first chapter and second chapter everyone (but Elbert) jokes about it. He was so cool in other people's routes and a lot of the events that I was just a little wary of him, but the fact everyone is okay with him and also treats it like a fun quirk actually makes me think less of the other characters. Only route in all four Ikemen games I've played so far where I had to stop because I was disgusted as opposed to bored (it's a shame because his curse and end are definitely the coolest and most creative). For my own peace of mind, I pretend like he doesn't have a route and he's a permanent side character.

[theimaginativelyreticent]

Victor is very popular in EN! I think he's 2nd to Jude, means surpassing Ellis 🤔 I can't all out simp on him now because I can't possibly go to war for both him and Jude at the same time 😑. I need to give up one of them and Jude is out of the question. 😤

Election is coming and I wonder how this EN serv ranking will change the upcoming events 🤔

If Victor placed 2nd, will EN serv make orig events again highlighting him...?

🤔🤔😯

[judesmoonbeauty]

Man or Monster?

Okie, so I've thinking about Vogel recently, and I've been curios as to how far Darius' ideoligies have affected the twins. If they have at all. This isn't really a theory, but more like thoughts I've been having, and I want to write them down so I can see things shape over time.

I do discuss event spoilers and mention Ellis route spoilers below, just FYI.

We still don't really know anything about them, but I've been curios as to whether the twins view themselves as humans or not.

Darius doesn't really seem to consider himself human due to being cursed, and what kind of got me started on this was thinking back to Nica's Wrapped event. Although I don't want to say too much because I'm no expert on Vogel, especially Darius, but.....

There is this scene in the premium end where Nica says "humans are foolish," so that just reminds me of Darius. And, if Nica doesn't consider himself to be a human, that would make sense to me because it's theorized that Darius may have been the twin savior, and I'm sure that they'd be inclined to listen to the thoughts and ideas of the one who saved them from their living hell as human experiments (if that's the case).

Which leads me to my next thought. If a curse can't exist in two people at the same time, then it could be said that one twin was cursed, and the other wasn't. Bring in the fact that genetic study was discovered in the 19th century and two little boys who may have be orphaned or sold are now in the hands of curious and greedy doctors and/or scientists.....Then we've got the perfect set up of one of the twins being made into a cursed host. Again, just a thought.

Another thought that I feel supports the fact that at least Nica doesn't consider himself to be human, is in one of his bond levels (to be translated), Nica is surprised that the MC takes his hand of her own accord and even mentions that to her. To me, that kind of just further proves the fact that he may view himself as a monster rather than a human, or at the very least someone worthless or undesirable.

Additionally, it's interesting to note (although I feel that it is trulyjust a coincidence), that in Ellis' MLE, there is a scene where the antagonist calls the Crown members monsters. This pisses Jude off a little bit and after he denounces the antagonist for their sins, Jude asks them "Who's the monster here?"

Of course, that's based loosely upon my summary of his route and not a thorough translation, so EN may use a different term. However, if they do use monster, then I think it's nice that we may now be delving further into the realm of what truly makes a monster a monster, and a man a man.

I mean, aren't we kind of exploring that very faint, underlying theme in each of the routes anyway? To me, none of the guys are monsters, but I feel like this would be a fun concept to explore in-game even more.

[blusherbaker]

More Alfons lines that made me blush (which really shouldn't have)

includes screenshots from the Wrapped in Wicked Romance event, Liam's route, and Alfons' bond stories.

( // ∇ // )

[bontu-the-l0ver]

Not me doing a fucking canvas presentation about the guys curses like I'm better than Roger

[mneiai]

I think one of the worst parts about the MC in ikevil, her falling so in love and changing so quickly regardless of the route/LI/plot, is directly related to one of the most ridiculous parts of the setup in general: the one month deadline.

In ikepri, a month makes sense: they literally don't have a king and a month is probably the absolute maximum amount of time they can give a Belle. So while stuff feels rushed, at least it makes sense WHY it's rushed.

And Belle mostly just has to be like "wow, this guy has a tragic backstory, but look how great he actually is" within that month, whereas the ikevil MC normally has to be like "wow, this guy has a fucked up backstory, magic powers that might really mess with me, a destined horrible death, and can only have some sort of unhealthy relationship because of those things, and also he's a murderer."

But, in ikevil, they literally could have given her three months, six months, a year, even.

The missions she often does could easily each take weeks instead of a few days, with the off-screen surveillance, fact checking, etc etc (which the side characters normally do anyway), and they wouldn't actually have to adjust the scripts much, just give a throwaway comment here or there to show the passage of time (which they already do a bunch, but normally for hours/a day or two).

"But what about if she wants to go back to her normal life?" I'm pretty sure most routes show she's too far in after a week or two, anyway. Like how do you even go back to such a life after knowing such secrets of the world? (Nevermind the privileges and stuff she gains)

Also, they give her a cover, so it's not like she'd have to explain where she was. In that time period just normal travel can take weeks, some extra months isn't going to make or break anything, especially since there's multiple times within different routes/events where the post office is still understaffed, so likely she'd just slot back into her old job even after months away.

"What about the restrictions on her?" I mean...what restrictions? There's multiple routes where she leaves the castle alone or stays out on her own before the month is out, it's clear that they start trusting her fairly early on (and why not? they've got multiple experts on reading people and an actual lie detector) and don't really care except insofar as her own safety is concerned, which honestly in some of the routes would still be an issue even if she left and cut ties with them.

Instead of her falling in love in like a week and then by the end of the month having already completely accepted whatever weird fetish and gruesome death/suicide pact she's invited (or all that shit with Alfons), they could have had it take more time. Instead of cramming so many encounters into a single day, they could have spread them out (instead of having almost everyone recover from like getting stabbed in a few days they could have lengthened that, too, lmao).

A lot of people complain about rushed routes that don't have enough time to show either how the MC feels or the LI, or both. That isn't just a constraint of the chapter limit (which, yeah, is an issue, but I don't think most players want to have to do even more chapters for a normal route, though there's some validity to how short some of the chapters are), but also of how much they can have the characters change in just a month. William's route, for example, is more or less the starter route, but is pretty controversial because most of what they needed to show of his feelings within the route is shown instead in events, so you get people questioning whether they're even actually in love, but of course it should take him longer to express his feelings given his hangups even if the MC is speedrunning things.

(Not even getting into stuff like the amount of time certain things they do would actually take with the technology of the day, or her learning enough sign language to have entire conversations in seemingly a few days, or that half of them have real jobs that they couldn't always have her around for, and stuff like that)