#I like elladine and I’m in love with her design

[cloveroctobers]

ELLADINE SARABI

IG info/bio: @/ellasardineabi | 18.5k followers | Artist | i was born with glass bones and paper skin♡

25 years old

Born & raised in Cardiff, Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Father was in the n*vy and moved his family around a few times until he and his wife came to a agreement that it would be best for the family to grow up in one solid place

whereas he would leave for months at a time living elsewhere

Which was hard on the family at times since he is viewed as the rock of the family

He eventually left the n*vy after serving 20 years & was so thankful to, he hated it and how it messed with him mentally

He’s also of Iranian heritage

Her mother is of German heritage

Has her own restaurant that serves authentic German food

Both of her parents instilled hard work, discipline, generosity, and how to be practical in their children

Elladine is the middle child

Has a brother that is ten years older than her and then a younger sister who is seven years behind her

Canon: there is currently a discussion going on if they are going to bring their (maternal) nan/mam-gu home since the nursing home isn’t providing the proper care their nan needs

Her mother has a rocky relationship with her mother that she doesn’t like to discuss with her children but her husband knows all about it

Her nan has Alzheimer's and is becoming violent

it has become difficult seeing her most days

Elladine came into glassblowing after being involved in many classes in secondary such as workshop class

which became her fav since she was able to manipulate many materials such as metal, wood, and glass

She also took a auto body class which was interesting but she wasn’t too thrilled about it. Got away with a B- but knew she could do better if she really wanted to but she didn’t need the class to graduate so allow it

Currently works in a glass studio where her work is displayed/sold and she’s one of the main ones that makes great profit

has bought her own space for her own studio and is slowly making it to her liking with her assistant, yes she’s got one!

Hopes to be in that space within the next 6 months...it would have been a little sooner if we weren’t dealing with a global p*ndemic!!! but ya know life f*cking sucks sometimes!!!1!!:) especially if people don’t gaf

Moved back in with her parents so that she could not only help with her nan but get her studio ready, her parents approved since she was working towards something and realized her talent

I definitely see elladine going through a grunge phase and it probably still slips out every now and then lol

Her childhood room is still in shades of raspberry, gray, and a deep purple

always been plus-sized/fuller than the rest but it’s literally hereditary since her mom is built the same way who got it from her dad

Her family never made her feel ashamed as they shouldn’t and none of her true friends made her feel different since they were all of different sizes!!! besides who’s really friends with someone because of their bodies? Ur really ugly if that’s how u roll js

Always a respectful student and not too afraid to spark up a convo with you but can be a little nervous if the person is more of a “I have to warm up to you first” since she’ll feel like she’s annoying you if she carries the convo at first

Takes her time in relationships because she’s scared of getting hurt, cause breakups are not fun! Especially if theyre your friend on top of that

Although Friendship breakups are much worse let’s be honest here!!!

Has noticed that a few of her exes like to bring up that she’s controlling or too bossy in relationships and that makes her a little insecure since she doesn’t view it that way??

She knows what she wants and likes things a certain way, and she can see how it can kinda come off that way based on how she approaches/says things and tries to be better at toning it down and not being offensive to her significant others

Always has a plan and likes to follow it, she definitely keeps to-do lists on a daily

Takes trips to see Nicky often and vice-versa, every moment they spend together feels like it’s meant to be, even when it’s them just simply chilling in each other’s spaces, he’s truly one of her best friends and he feels like the missing part of her life

He offered for her to move in with him but elladine didn’t accept it since she wanted to be there to help with her nan and in fact—she wanted to be the one to ask HIM to move in with her

but if they make it long enough, they’ll go house hunting together...maybe

I get Shawn/Angela relationship vibes from them (boy meets world for those who aren’t aware of this couple and I’m not just saying this because they’re interracial as well lol) did I say this already about someone else? Brain fart lol

everyone relationship has their flaws so when they hit a bump in the road...elladine immediately wants to fix it but it comes off as more critiquing, moodiness/blaming the other

while Nicky can be defensive/argumentive/a little condescending on his end

To get through it, they normally go on a walk together in complete silence until they’re ready to speak again or they take a break from each other

I think words of affirmation is her love language

Taurus sun + Virgo moon + Capricorn rising?

“The girl on the motorcycle” is one of her fav films — no this is not metaphoric to her love life

Loves watching things with captions on since she always finds herself doing something else while watching anything (which irks Nicky a little bit but that’s just the way elladine is and he loves her so he deals with it)

Will rewind something if she missed it too

Canon: never had morning sex before

but can now say she has ;) & understands the pros people say about it and it outweighs the cons in her book

Will start the whole song over too if she missed her fav part in it

She also enjoys billiards since her brother used to work in a pool hall and when he had to watch her because she was “too young” in her words to stay home by herself he would take her there even tho technically she wasn’t supposed to be there but he was screwing his boss’s daughter so it was quite fine

her sister has a crush on Gary & ships elladine with him, which they joke about every now and then + he doesn’t follow her back, which is okay! Not a big deal but her sister keeps sliding in his dms (he’s now single)

She NEVER thought she would be on THE love island and wasn’t that confident that she’d find a real love that carried on outside of the show but Nicky has proven her wrong 🥲

She’s 5’5–5’6

Probably shops at Zara & top shop and has no issue picking pieces that flatter her “pear” figure, she loves all that is of her body: the pudge, love handles, cellulite and all (she’s very confident and won’t let anyone see her moments of doubt when it comes to her frame)

Loves mythology but will tell bill stfu if he comes near her trying to argue about anything in that subject

Very competitive and will rush through certain things, leaving one to think that she’ll fail somewhere but rarely does

If she’s not near or away from the mountains or the sea for long period of time she gets very moody!!! Guess that’s the Welsh in her huh?

Loves fireplaces, they’re super cozy and very romantic if you catch ella’s drift 😏

Probably smells like jasmine & pink pepper idk

Wants to travel to Iceland one day

Knows her way around a car but dreads having to get it fixed or fixing it herself?

Loves driving until her road rage kicks in? Oh you’re gonna go around her to get in front of her? Never that. She’ll always be in front of you and will break check you if you try her “Drewgi” she mutters

Early riser and goes to bed early too lol

She’s the crying drunk lmao

Automatically vieve has become one of her best friends from the villa but it deff didn’t feel forced like it normally would have just because their bfs have a podcast together, they talk about everything together. EVERYTHING! It feels like she’s the big sister she never had, yet they’re only a year apart lol

They have ft sleepovers and man is it fun!

Forgave lily but at the same time can’t fully see herself being friends with her like vieve tried to encourage before they went on the yacht...sorry everything can’t be Kumbaya over here sis

It sucks to say but it was easier? She doesn’t know if that’s the right term or not... for her to forgive rafi than it was lily and it’s fucked up but that’s the way it is. It’s not like she contacts him on seperate messages or anything like that! She’ll talk to him via group chat and that’s pretty much it. She knows it was all part of the show and production’s bs for ratings but that doesn’t mean it still didn’t hurt

Wishes him success on his shows/movies but doesn’t engage/watch them

What does she post? I feel like she posts maybe three times a month and a lot are outfit pics but tends to go live more so to chat with the people! She’ll also show all what glassblowing entails while chatting away! She loves that part and is pretty open about things but knows how to keep some things private

Personally wasn’t the biggest fan of season 1 but admits she wishes she had mc’s balls in terms of what she would have done if she was in elladine’s place when lily picked Nicky, “ugh! I wish I had her strength rising through my veins in that moment. Absolute riot. Adore her.”

‘“Licky” is a ugly ass ship name anyways so who’s really winning here?!’

Celeb crushes? Iwan Rheon, Henry Zaga, Anthony Welsh, jason derulo, & LaRoyce Hawkins

Listens to: soleima, Marisa Maino, Ava Max, poppy, Caroline polachek, Donny Hathaway, Phil Good, & SAINt JHN

Anthem — M.I.A. “Bad Girls”

[hopeshoodie]

Oh my god they made Rafi white for this one? Wtf? the outsourced artists ALWAYS lighten the skin of the original characters

And now they've got Mason cosplaying as a Magic Mike character too... Just no

I don’t know What The Hell Is Wrong with the studio producing Matchmaker but at this point I’m just going to say they’re racist. Point blank. Like all of the below taken in isolation would be in poor taste, but they keep doing shit like

When LITG S1 was first released, there was a dark skinned option for MC, BUT at first there was no way to change your lip color to match a darker skin tone so it looked like pale lipstick AND they didn’t implement any of the curly/braids style in LITG, so you just had no options for a black MC.

Beanie Quinn straight up could not be any darker than tan. Like you can’t play a black MC there.

The one (1) dark skinned character in Beanie Quinn is a cop who bends the law when it comes to search warrants/interrogations/investigation standards. I’ll give them a pass for this because idk the culture surrounding police in non-American countries but like… sus.

LA Noir allows MC to be dark skinned, but there’s no textured hair options.

Genevieve’s sprite is reused in LA Noir but her arms are made thinner (fatphobia is a whole separate issue in matchmaker- THEY MADE ELLADINE SKINNY) and took away her textured hair and replaced it with straight hair in an updo.

Across multiple stories they continue the trend of using non-inclusive language like “he runs his hand through your hair” or having MC blush, which excludes readers. IK LITG did this too, but there’s less writing to parse through in Matchmaker so it’s more obvious.

And now Rafi’s hair and jawline is reused in the love interest for the new Vegas themed game, but his skin tone is noticeably lightened.

Even outside of Matchmaker, I’m so tired of IF games giving you the ~option~ to have a POC or white LI interchangeably. Like it’s less of a problem with text-based that explicitly do not describe characters appearances, but in games where there is art like Matchmaker and Lovelink I’m Tired Of It.

Because really it lays bare that ‘white’ is always the default, and if you prefer POC you can have that but it’s not going to have any meaningful impact on the character. Taking a white character and redesigning their avatar to be Asian/black/latino/etc isn’t creating a character of color, it’s just doing the bare minimum to perform diversity. It’d be different if it was something other than ‘interchangeable white love interest and black love interest’, but across so many games it always seems to be that.

It was slightly more acceptable when LITG S1 did it because Mason and Levi are two different personalities/characters, but even then… And now Matchmaker’s new game promo has the same ‘white dude and black dude both fawning over a white MC, you can ~~~chose~~~’. I’m over it, and I think the medium needs to get over it too. Especially when, if they truly did remix Rafi’s design, they could’ve just… Kept him the same race………

[ravenadottir]

I think you have done this before but can you profile the girls from Casa Amour? The ones we didn't get to see? Names, age, maybe how they look like? Love your blog and your headcanons! At this point, they're canon to me 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

oh? i love this so much! the fuck!

first of all, thank you anon! you’re really sweet.

now, about the girls. i only named them a while ago, and i can’t draw for shit, but i can do some designs for them and profile their data, just like the game (name, age, hometown and key phrase), then add some headcanons.

i have a new app and i’mms use it to give you looks and features, because you know what? it’s really fun!

‘emily’

23, new castle, fashion designer, “wants to find a pin for her pin cushion”

the funny girl the boys wanted to have a chance to come back. she had sex with jakub on the first night. 

cat person (her underwear had two pussies in it)

had a hard time connecting with anyone else but played cool about jakub not wanting to crack on with her anymore

couldn’t bear when jakub had to kiss siobhan on the villa x villa challenge

‘elladine thicc’

‘i’m here to make friends and maybe find someone special’

bright eyes and very much into the idea of soulmates

public liked her but thought she made a mistake with jakub. not because of the sex, because of jakub

found out later he had no intentions of cracking on with her for real

.

‘laura’

21, liverpool, keytarist in a band, “i know when to drop the beat’

she shared the bed with gary

gary was made fun for sharing a bed with someone who reminded everyone of hannah, looks wise

she got mad at that, saying she had nothing to do with hannah and her hair is not even a natural red “you guys need new repertoire”

it made gary give her the loudest high five ever

they had fun since both were goofy and she had a crush on noah, but gave up after he said he wasn’t interested

she talked to him about going back but didn’t push it to happen

became close with siobhan almost right away since they were both into the thickest boys in the house. that sparked more conversations

the type that the public wants her to be taken back ‘cause she had the banter with every boy and the girls would’ve liked her

.

‘siobhan’

23, from cork, med student, ‘has heard all types of ‘playing doctor’ pick up lines

the girl that reminded noah of hope

shared the bed with lurik on the first night, then jakub for the remaining days

she cracked on with jakub for the rest of the casa amor days and was into him since he came in the main villa and she was watching back home

she’s a sweet girl once you get to know her

she was shy at first, but gary and bobby made all the girls feel comfortable, playing truth or dare to break the ice

‘bobby and gary are like younger brothers, i don’t care about their age’’

they were the ones to make it happen with jakub without knowing he had spent the night before with emily

the public went insane when jakub decided to stick with hope because siobhan and him clicked really fast

.

‘erica’

22, from cardiff, business major, ‘known to run away from a date that asked her ‘why not just printing more money?’

she shared the bed with noah but wasn’t interested in him

she had tons of fun with the boys like gary and bobby making fun of jakub

cleverest jokes but ther worst deliverance

learned how to shove five bread rolls in her mouth thanks to bobby

that facial expression is the one she gives to every bobby joke, just to make him uncomfortable and laugh it out later

practical but still believes in small lovey-dovey things, like soulmates

loves math pick up lines/jokes

connected to laura really fast and wanted to take rahim to the hideaway but he was smitten

didn’t 

.

‘shannon’

24, from dublin, professional poker player, ‘that girl who loves true crime podcasts’

originally interested in lucas, but he wasn’t into her

went for ibrahim for his looks and because he was charmingly dorky

she saw and opportunity and took it

started liking him more, but wasn’t all in with him

the girls weren’t so keen on her, she seemed too competitive

blake liked her since day one and they became an item

.

‘blake’

22, from kensington, her occupation and phrase depend on mc’s choice at the beginning:

human rights campaigner, “does good, looks better”

graduate student, “i’ve got the brains, i’ve got the looks…”

singer-songwriter, ‘not just here to promote her new album’

beauty blogger, ‘claims she invented ‘on fleek’’

went for the li you like but settled for your actual partner (noah, lucas or henrik)

‘headcanons’

felt like the leader of the group of girls, sort of exercising leadership like graham, except here the girls weren’t having it 

part of the reason she warmed up to shannon was her competitivity

gary and bobby didn’t like her but didn’t say anything

i hope this is what you were looking for anon. i had fun making these up. thanks for the ask!!

[fictitiouspastery]

I didn’t realize season three of litg came out so here are my thoughts so far!

Pros:

- I’m glad that even though it is half the days as the first season, they kept the longer part lengths. It will definitely feel longer then season one.

- apparently a lot more female love interests? AJ is my wife and I don’t think I’ll end up switching but you never know. I am holding out hope for Iona because she’s hot af but I feel like AJ might be the only love interest in the og group. It’s nice to do a female li path that gives you actual options instead of “here’s one I guess, maybe another but she comes so late that you barely have any time with her”.

- you can kiss AJ twice??? In the first two days?? AND IT DOESNT COST GEMS????? Praise the lord I was so happy. The game seems to be giving us a lot of free 1 on 1 scenes with the love interests which is very appreciated. Even with the male li’s in previous seasons it took a few days for things to get going. But this season you’ve got free scenes with who you’re coupled up with as well as with boys you aren’t, such as Camilo after dinner.

- maybe it’s just cause it’s early days but everyone’s a lot more chill then in season two. Usually you had at least one girl who got partnered up and was immediately like “anyone who looks at this boy get their tits cut off” and it was always a source of drama. But this season even girls who are really happy in their couples are chill with you flirting with the guys and voicing your opinions. They even don’t make that big a deal out of you being popular, even though it does come up. Maybe it’s just the choices I’ve picked but MC doesn’t really have any enemies rn so I’m happy. I’m also glad there was a kissing challenge where it really was just kiss whoever you want no one cares.

- I know a lot of people are bummed that Seb and Nikky won’t be love interests. I thought Nikky was really cute and wanted to see what his route was like. But I’m very glad that the game tells you straight up that they aren’t possible to romance so that you don’t waste your time. I didn’t play as it came out last season but I know a lot of people felt cheated that Noah wasn’t romancable and you can only get his route if you know what you’re doing. So even though I’m bummed, we won’t have weeks of Will they won’t they with non li guys.

- lmao people are not nearly as mean when you use free outfits. They say it doesn’t stand out, but usually compliment you after and it doesn’t come off as snarky as it did in previous seasons

Cons:

- I don’t like the art as much?? Most of the actual characters are fine but I hate the design options for MC. I really loved how pretty the MC templates were from season 2, and I kinda wish they had just reused some assets. They just don’t look as well proportioned? It also would have been great to keep our wardrobe between season but I get the devs gotta get that coin and keep people buying gems. Idk I just wish I had my old MC back. I also want access to Elladine’s body type as an option please she is so hot.

- a few of the characters seem very close to season two characters? Mostly Bill. He has a lot of the same characteristics as Gary but without the charm. He likes beer and chilling with his friends and works in construction and seems to have a lot of the same pick up lines. But he doesn’t have the physique that Gary has that really sells that kind of character. He’s very lean and clean, and looks more like he works a tech start up in California. I find him a bit boring. Iona is hot but she doesn’t have much personality yet besides “bad girl”. She seems very much like Jo when she first entered the villa and was still confident. I hope she gets fleshed out more. That goes for most of the girls actually. There was a lot of girl bonding time in season two that event though there was a lot of drama, made the female contestants feel like actual characters.

- I don’t really see the comparisons between Harry and Lucas? They’re both Asian but that’s about it. Harry is smaller, leaner, and gives off a more young vibe, and the bangs sell his shy attitude. He’s insecure but excited to be there. Lucas was ripped and was very confident. He was reserved but very posh and only had trouble fitting in because of how he spoke. Didn’t stop him though.

- I am a bit disappointed that the season is half length. I get why they did that though, and I’m sure it will be fun!

Looking forward:

- better clothing options! I’m not really digging the ones now so I hope we get some!

- fleshing out the characters! Like I said above, I want to see more personality. When I first played Season 2, I was impressed that a mobile game made characters that felt as fleshed out (or at least fun) as they were. It felt like everyone actually was friends by the end which was nice.

- I really want to see the other female li’s! And also that really buff dude in the promos?

[hopeshoodie]

I’ve been thinking about Boat Party a lot lately. I really /really/ loved the ‘after the villa, after the sparkle of new relationships has faded’ dynamic with all the couples (including MC), and I liked that it was basically a mini-season instead of three episodes. LOVED the podcast framing the story instead of the narrative, and obviously all the characters were far more fleshed out than they were in the main season. But my issues with it are

 - It felt like they ran out of story and started rehashing the same thing (MC’s LI going from wanting to work on the relationship back to avoiding her) and using filler (the carnival is cute but doesn’t have any notable moments), so there were episodes where a bunch of things happened and episodes where nothing really changed

-The backsliding of the relationship issues really framed our primary LIs’ to be in the wrong. I loved most of the initial conflicts, how serious and mature MOST of them were. And I did really like the push and pull of trying to reconcile. But then around day 6 our LIs agree to work on it, then the next episode go back to saying they’re “not sure if it’s going to work”. That was super frustrating and unsatisfying because it felt like our progress was erased.

-The secondary LI being forced on us. I’m only here for Lily, but because the story FORCED me to take Yasmin on a walk now suddenly the narrative is insisting I’m cheating on Lily. I get why we have secondary LIs, but it felt kind of like it did in the main season- literally everyone is interested in MC and when you switch to a new person there’s no narrative tension or differentiation between the different people.

-the premise of a Boat Vacation kind of framed this very post-LITG story in a LITG way. LITG is formulaic because it’s a reality show- a bunch of people who don’t know each other are thrown together on vacation, and as they do Vacation Things they build different relationships. Boat Party was really unique from any other season because it wasn’t a reunion focused only on MC getting with new people or being happy with her LI. It was a story about people, post-production, in the real world navigating real issues. But them being on vacation innately framed it in a LITG way, with ‘outings on the mainland’ taking the place of challenges. This is the key idea that got me thinking about how I would re-write Boat Party.

 Because as much as I enjoyed Boat Party, I don’t think it really delivered on either its themes or the themes of the main season. Boat Party’s themes were realistic relationship conflict, it was about CHOOSING to love people, whereas the main series was about friendships and respecting platonic relationships. Maybe that’s just my interpretation because there was so very little nuance in the romantic stories of S3, BUT ANYWAYS. So if we wanted to better honor those two points (that platonic relationships are important to respect and irl relationships are hard), here’s how I would reframe the S3 reunion-

 It's a wedding episode, but not for MC. I feel like Seb and Genevieve are a better couple and were way more serious than Nicky and Elladine, so we’ll make it a Sebevieve wedding. We still do the same opening with conflicts that Boat Party does (but take out the personality test because that really didn’t impact the story very much and imo broke immersion), but instead of storming off your LI says “what, so you don’t want to go to the wedding together?” MC recoils in confusion, and they say “I brought it in from the mail last week, it’s been sitting on the counter for days. You didn’t read it?”. MC walks over, reads it (the player gets to see the ‘save the date’), and then there’s the first choice of the game. You can either tell your LI you want to go with them, or say you want to go alone.

 I think Boat Party proceeds much like as written after that, but now we have a huge emotional THING that all the characters can react to. We still learn that Elladine’s family is having issues, but we learn it in the context of them questioning their relationship with Nicky because ‘why won’t he commit? I thought we would be the first ones to get engaged’. Because we got that little teaser after stealing the money in S3 of Nicky being down, maybe we get some more noncommittal bs from him. From Seb we get genuine excitement about the wedding, but a little bit of concern about what’s going to happen to the podcast after he’s married to Viv. Viv is all excitement- school is ramping up and now she’s getting married. She definitely gives some good advice to MC about the LI situation. All the other little conflicts are happening in the background, but suddenly everyone’s questioning how legitimate their own relationships are.

 But at the heart of everything is MC and her LI struggling more intensely with presenting happiness to everyone else, while trying to figure out if their relationship is as serious as Seb and Viv’s, and if they even want it to be. Instead of not talking for major swaths of the game, they’re forced into situations like the rehearsal dinner and bachelor/ette party, where they have to pretend everything’s fine and devolve into tension and arguing. Maybe the different LIs like Bill, Lily, Camilo, Ciaran want to get married eventually, while LIs like AJ and Rafi want to pump the breaks and keep things more casual. Instead of backsliding, there’s this mounting tension of increasingly serious conflict which kicks off the night before the wedding. Maybe it’s the ‘I made you food but oops forgot you were vegan’ thing or it’s the LI going ‘I don’t know if I want to keep pretending we’re together’, but there’s a really intense argument scene and THEN the LI storms off for the first time.

You can choose to either go to a specific LI for comfort (which designates them the secondary LI) or sit alone (in which case Viv or Seb will come out to comfort you). There’s a sweet moment of debriefing from the fight, and you can choose to cheat on your partner or not. If you go to Elladine, Seb, or Viv and try to cheat, they’ll be shocked and reject you. We need consequences for feeling entitled to others romantically so bad, so here they are.

Then the entirety of the wedding, your LI is avoiding you. It comes to a head at the reception, when they approach you and ask you to dance. If you say yes, you can try to reconcile with them. Or you can reject them, in which case the secondary LI will ask you to dance. There’s a really sincere conversation on the dance floor, either apologizing for the fight and resolving to do better (MC’s worried that this is all happening because they’re at a wedding, is it going to get better in the real world?) or trying to comfort MC and feel out the new relationship. It culminates at the end of the reception, where the secondary LI asks MC to leave with them. MC’s original LI is there, and she can make eye contact with them and go with the secondary LI, or refuse.

[cloveroctobers]

Most aesthetic/attractive couples? In all seasons/mixed seasons

cracks knuckles, alright then!* if we’re talking physicality’s as part of the aesthetic/attractive couples to me... if I had things MY way then this is it! I’ll just do my favs or characters I enjoyed from each season (mixed) this was harder than I thought lol

Jake Wilson...Jake Wilson...Jake Wilson! The chef, the poet, the introvert, the dad-friend, bi-king, and mr. tall dark and handsome! If I had to pair him with anyone based only on the physical I’d say Ms. Bubbly Chelsea or if it’s not the obvious Rohan

Rohan = I still say he deserved much more than what was given! I think so highly of him maybe more than jake sorry He needs to be loved too and jake can obviously give that to him and him in return ofc but in another au perfect world I’d say Blake if they gave her a actual personality but again we’re not talking about what makes sense here OR OR OR even Iona would be hot to see them together whewww

Talia/Marisol —OR— Talia/Tai

Tim/Yasmin = I wracked my brain trying to figure out WHO and that’s the ideal couple physically that I can think of for my boy tim which means that my brain is only thinking of a oc for him instead don’t come for me y’all

Actual couples that I found most attractive through the gameplay regardless if they work or didn’t! And I’m also thinking the design too (s2 is my fav design thus far)

Priya/Noah + Priya/Ibrahim

Marisol/Rocco

Chelsea/Lucas

Elladine/Nicky

Hope/Noah

AJ/Tai

Genevieve/Seb

Iona/Camilo (they did Camilo dirty with his design and I just wanna talk about it, it’s highly disrespectful that they did that. He looks like one of those random local fishes from spongebob because wtf I’m still heated about it)

Lottie/Kassam

[hopeshoodie]

Literally no one asked, but I have a lot of ✨thoughts✨ about how Fusebox treated the best friend characters (specifically Nicky and Seb because I didn't see the same issues with Viv and Ella) and how the fandom reacted to them.

I think I said it before, but watching the dumpster fire of people simping for Seb and Nicky was so satisfying as a sapphic because like… It’s just Expected (TM) that the best woman in each game isn’t going to be endgame romancable. Most female LIs in choices/episode/interactive fiction aren’t written as compellingly as the side characters (if there are even female side characters at all), so lesbians and exclusively female-attracted people just accept that’ll be the case. So it’s funny to watch straighties cope with that (poorly) for once.

I wouldn’t be so cavalier about it, but if you were around when S3 was releasing it was insane. At least one out of every 4 posts was about wanting to romance Seb or Nicky, or lamenting their unavailability, or theorizing when they would become available.

And that general sense of entitlement kind of bothered me? The sentiment that Fusebox shouldn’t be allowed to put explicitly non-endgame people in, or that they should change their story because most of their audience wanted something. I even saw people on reddit demanding that every character be romancable? I’m begging that person to consider that maybe, just maybe, the writers have intentions for the characters and sacrificing those intentions for the sake of making literally everyone interested in MC isn’t the best way to the write a story.

And I get it, because Nicky and Seb both had super distinctive designs imo Nicky was the most attractive guy in the game. But like..... Noah/Rahim/Arjun were the most attractive in S2 and their routes sucked. It's honestly kind of boring that the most attractive character be the most available, because then you just get a fandom of people obsessed with one person (like Lovelink with the prison guy)

Making every character interested in MC also takes a lot away from their character, because despite having distinct personalities they’re all interested in MC regardless of player choices. I think this was true of the S3 character who were romancable- all of them were available from the first opportunity to couple with them, so their personalities all blended together. None of them had any agency. S1 did this so well with people like Jake and Rohan feeling obligated to their partner and unsure about MC, S2 did this well by including slowburn options like Marisol and Noah and kind of Gary.

I’m not going to argue that fiction games should reflect real life because… They’re not real life, they’re escapist fantasies. But there is realism in characters who just… Aren’t interested in other characters (including MC). It doesn’t have to be for a reason either, which is what I liked about Seb, it can just be that they’re not into MC. When that’s the case, it feels gross to insist that they have to change their mind or be won over, because isn’t that behavior gross irl?

And that's all about the fan reception. It doesn't help that FB handled Nicky and Seb's unavailability pretty poorly. Despite making it clear they weren’t romancable, Fusebox:

Teased with situations like Seb being naked or Nicky flirting with MC if she steals the money. I especially didn’t like that players had the option to sexualize Seb during the naked scene, and it wasn’t addressed/pointed out in fiction. Like if FB wanted to make the point that ‘being naked around a friend can be platonic, and you sexualizing it is a violation of trust’, then MAKE THAT POINT. Have Seb react really negatively, have a character explicitly say it. Don’t treat it as a cheeky little treat for Seb simps.

Said Seb and Nicky weren’t endgame but didn’t address if Viv/Ella were. Like???? What was the reason??!?!?!!! Got my hopes up for nothing. And also, if literally everyone except Seb, Nicky, Elladine, Genevivev, Iona, and Miki is endgame, why not just say that!? Wasted my time thinking Iona was going to be a slowburn. The way I would do it (and did it when writing episode stories) was to have an option at the beginning or menu where people could preview who was endgame. Then people could be informed when getting into romantic situations with side characters. But tldr the fact that FB announced Seb and Nicky as non-romantic but didn't stay consistent with other non-romantic characters cast doubt on their original statement.

Didn't reaffirm in boat party that they were still non-romantic. I don't blame players for thinking that they would become endgame in the reunion, because that's what has happened in all of the past reunion episodes. Maybe just reiterate who is romancable? Or write it so that if the MC tries to steal them she actually faces consequences like them not wanting to be her friend anymore (because she keeps violating their boundaries) and having Ella or Viv get upset.

But honestly, FB shouldn’t HAVE to disclose who’s endgame. They didn’t in S2 and S1, and it was fine. I honestly wonder how much of the hype around Seb/Nicky wouldn’t have been there if FB never confirmed one way or another. If people were quietly wondering ‘will they won’t they’. Or was the backlash because Fusebox had the audacity to say people were strictly off limits?

Didn't flesh out the Sebevieve and Nickadine ships. It seems like FB was trying to say that the reason Seb/Nicky were off limits was because they were so enamored in their pairings. But we didn’t… See that…. At all…….. I love the idea of non-MC ships, I want to ship characters. But they need to have… some kind of dynamic?? It’s fine, I can hyperfixate and make one up, it’s just… Not convincing.

This ended up being wayyyy longer than I expected it to be, but in summation: I love the idea of strictly platonic characters. I love Tim and Chelsea. I even like characters who are romancable but not endgame (Rocco and Rohan are the ones coming to mind). I think all the fuss over Seb/Nicky was a little Yikes, and it clearly demonstrates that FB either needs to not announce who is romanceable or be much more intentional with how they write and communicate about non-romanceable characters.