5 reasons why you should play Moonlight Lovers Neil
Is this post propaganda? Yes, it is. It totally is. In my opinion Neil’s route is the best thing Beemoov has ever given us and people should know. So, I’m gonna do something I never do, tumblr’s immortal sin: crosspost. I think people from some specific fandoms would like this route. So here is the list of reason why you should play this game:
5. THE ROUTE We are romancing a villain. The villain of the previous routes. So this makes this route already quite different from the others and very interesting. He is a complicated man (vampire) with a long and complicated past. If you have never played ML I suggest you play Vladimir first (and maybe Beliath too if you have the capacity). You don’t have to, because the story is understandable anyway, but I recommend it because it’ll give more flavour to Neil’s route once you get to him. Everything is sort of flipped here, we learn to see things from his own experience and point of view first and then the other vampires, so what we took from granted as correct and just in the previous routes, gets questioned and revaluated here. Morality and actions are questioned and black and white blend in a very murky grey.
4. NEIL He’s a really hot dilf… ehm… I mean older guy 😌
And he’s SASSY. I love it. He keeps roasting the other vampires like the king he is
and yeah he’s an actual real life ancient Irish king (Niall “Noígíallach”), with very interesting lore.
3. ELOISE Eloise (the MC) is a total badass. Differently from the other routes, she’s turned into a vampire from the first moment and she owns it. She’s great and not in a Mary-sue unbelievable chosen-one style, she’s just very talented and smart. She actually has agency and is at the centre of the plot. This route is really her/our journey, where we are discovering our power and what we’re willing to do for it.
We also get to suck dry a wannaby r*pist early in the route, which is one of my favourite scenes.
2. THE RELATIONSHIP
The relationship between Eloise and Neil is top tier. Despite him being the villain and trying to kill her on all the other routes, here she is his protégé. For this reason, it’s not a real enemies-to-lovers route, but more a mentor/mentee romance. And, despite that, there’s no power imbalance, and he is very respectful of her. There’s no way anyone could call this relationship toxic. He likes Eloise being fierce and strong and lets her take charge whenever she wants.
Also, him being older, he’s a true gentleman
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Now, if you are like me and like “problematic” ships, this may potentially sound boring, but it isn’t at all. The spice lies in the fact that Eloise is basically slowly being seduced to the dark side and turning into a villain herself. This is the dream of anyone wishing to join team evil in Eldarya or people who always wished to romance a sith and join them.
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1. THE ENDINGS On the other hand, if turning bad and killing people doesn’t suit you, you can choose to remain faithful to your inner humanity and goodness. You have choices on directly impacting the ending
So, in the end, if Neil really isn’t your cup of tea but you still like the idea of being a badass vampire, you could end up siding up with the “good” guys and probably kill Neil, or banish him, I can’t say yet because as at the time I’m writing this (November 2021) not all episodes have been released yet, but these or similar outcomes are very likely.
Here is my list, I won’t say more to not slip too much into spoilers territory, but feel free to check my ‘ml neil’ tag if you want to know more.
