caught by the villain
the main character was originally a korean woman who had died and reincarnated into the body of "selena evan", the twin sister of a villainous side character named "celestine". every man is drafted for the military at 18, but the night before this celestine goes missing and selena must take his place in fear of their family being executed for disobeying the emperor.
selena, now celestine, tries to keep a low profile as in the original story celestine was hired by the violent prince ignus, and ultimately executed for his service, alongside his family. despite her best efforts, selena is tangled up in being ignus' bodyguard anyways and she searches for a way to keep both herself and her family safe.
beyond this point, there will be spoilers while i rable on about nothing
pre warning that i refer to selena both by her name and as celestine. her brother wont get brought up by name very often so this is why
caught by the villain is probably my favourite otome isekai of the recs on my list. i love how much it slots into cliches and tropes and turns them on their heads, or just takes them in interesting directions. i typically am not a fan of the "disguising as a man/woman" trope (especially when it's paired with romance), as it tends to come off very homophobic or transphobic. however, i absolutely adore this series because none of that is present.
one of my favourite bits of this story is when ignus starts falling for "celestine" (selena), and he has no hesitation in his mind to immediately claim himself as bisexual now. it made me really laugh the scene with rowan where he's like "hm. me as the royal prince...can i marry a man?" and rowan being like NO??? ignus is a whole ass mess and i love him for that
lets talk about ignus for a moment. he's probably one of my favourite MLs ever. he has so much character and personality, and his motivations drive everything he does "i want to live". his development is absolutely incredible as he goes from being a snarky, egotistical snake bastard to being open, kind, and smart. his personality doesn't change completely, but him at the beginning of the series feels nothing like how he does at the current point. his relationship with selena grows so slowly over the course of the series and i love it so much.
a lot of people talk about chapter 77 since that was a really intense "romantic" scene, but in my opinion there was a scene that stood out to me way more. when celestine and ignus were teleported outside of the gates, and he was confronting her about litio and held onto her...and she was just sitting there petting his hair...bro it doesn't get cuter or more domestic than that.. like that was the peak of romance in the series so far for me it was literally so cute and showed that he was warming up to her !! idk i love them. ignus is so adorable
fun fact: the first time i read i really really disliked ignus for a long time, but really liked litio (puppydog boys as you guys know are my faves) and i thought i was gonna get 2nd ML syndrome for a while until. yknow. litio got weird and then i changed my mind and absolutely fell in love with ignus. to be fair ignus starts as a catboy and then becomes a little puppydog boy, and litio is the exact opposite (puppydog -> cat).
i may add on more to this as the series progresses, but i highly recommend this story!!!!
at this point i should just make an ignus shrine stg