#headcanoncs

I’d give Season 1 a 8/10. The things that I love are:

I actually? Like the art style? I know that’s everyone’s complaint with S1 but that doesn’t bother me. Like they’re not supposed to look hyperrealistic and I like the painted/more loose style.

I love that the conflict feels real- you can start by liking someone and slowly grow to hate them. MC can stand up for herself and actually fight with the islanders.

I love Talia and Jake, and the routes to getting them were perfect- it didn’t feel forced or too easy, but it wasn’t so hard that I was frustrated. The perfect about of slowburn.

In general, I really like when games have less LIs but the paths with those LIs feel distinct and fit into the story. S2 and 3 fell into the trap of ‘people want sprites that they’re attracted to so we’ll write a love story for MC and one person then sub in the art for the character of their preference. That’s where you get the whole ‘everyone has the same dialogue after day 22′ from. I don’t mind waiting the entire story for a specific character, so long as it feels organic to get them and the story in the lead up is interesting. S1 did this well by only having 4 end-game LIs, but making each story feel worth it. 

The challenges! The lie detector and astrology were actually kind of fun and novel.

My only criticisms are that 

I wish there were more opportunities to just chat with the LIs about non-important things. I love my girl Talia, but one of the reasons I don’t write a lot for her is because I feel like I don’t know her much. I know how she acts, but I don’t know much about her life or her past? Same with the other LIs.

I wish the Christmas episode was longer so we could actually BE with our LIs instead of just getting in the car with them. I want actual consequences for taking the money (because really? Maybe only your best friends would be okay with it but everyone else would absolutely be pissed). I wanted more than just an angry text if I broke Tim and Jen up- Tim would have regrets almost immediately and I want to fight with Jen about it.

Season 2 will always be my comfort media 9/10. I wish we had the ability to skip forward in episodes (maybe have a quick text screen where you click the choices that impact the points/outcome)- that would make replaying much easier. 

But I love love LOVE the characters- even the shitty ones like Graham and Blake still /have/ personalities. They just feel so real. 

I really liked the conflict-resolution angle of the story, but I wish it would’ve been applied better. Too much of it was just ‘select the right choice’. I wanted it to be more based on your relationship (if Hope doesn’t like you enough she won’t tell you x, or if Lottie doesn’t like you enough she won’t talk to you about y), and more of a puzzle. It’d be cool if fights happened off screen and MC had to piece together what happened and how to resolve it. 

I love how the narrative forces you to de-couple and challenges MC’s relationships. My first playthrough 

I think the drama elements there are right but they’re out of order. Lowkey, I’m working on a post about how I would re-write S2, and a lot of it is just shortening or lengthening conflicts. 

I adore the mechanic of having personality traits like combative/complacent, stylish/casual, supportive/catty that we can act out with MC. Being able to curate MC to have a specific personality allows us to develop her character in our minds and to mesh with/clash with the islanders. Like if you dressed/acted a certain way, there would be dialogue to reflect how the different LIs felt about it. It feels much more interactive to have the characters react to your playstyle and to be able to be ‘Gary’s girl’ as opposed to a Rahim girl or a Lucas girl. Maybe that’s why Bobby’s so popular? He’s one of the few LIs that you don’t really have the incentive to curate a personality for- he loves MC regardless. That’s kind of why I don’t like him, nothing about his route feels unique or tailored to my MC (and why I love Noah, because my MC is really smart and mature and a bit nonconfrontational). 

The clothing!! It actually gives the characters personality and style instead of just being ‘generic sexy’.

How the non-LI islanders genuinely seem to have interests and have pre-determined couples if MC doesn’t interrupt them.  Especially in the start, everyone was voicing who they wanted and if they were unhappy in their couple. I don’t mind fighting Lottie for Gary, and I wish characters like Chelsea, Bobby, and Lurik actually had relationships that they wanted. The hints of Chelsea liking your CA boy were really good, give me MORE of that. 

The challenges- I really liked the secrets challenge, heartbeat challenge, and baby challenge. They felt fresh and created actual conflict between the characters.

I’m not a fan of

How much time is dedicated to certain drama plot lines. People keep saying that drama needs to be MC focused- I don’t think that’s true. I really enjoyed the Noah/Hope drama, the conflict between Lottie and Chelsea, and the fallout of OP for Priya. I think the problem is when MC doesn’t have a reason to be involved (so Marisol has to come and specifically say ‘hey can you fix this because.... everyone wants to be chill’). Everyone hates the Jo/Shannon drama, but what if instead of Chelsea getting roped in, MC’s the one who tells everyone and then people get mad at her? Then she’d get to defend herself instead of just being like ‘we should get along :))))’.

Building off of the former, S2 conflict is too event-based. Priya grinded on Noah and I’m mad about it, Jo kissed Rahim and I’m mad. I miss characters just straight up not liking each other, it made the villa seem more politically strategic- like there are cliques and MC has to choose them. We got hints of that, like with our ability to support Rocco/Marisol, but too often the conflict is easily resolved with ‘talking it through’. How much more compelling would the Jo/Shannon drama be if they both said “yeah I don’t like her” and you had to pick a side. Like Priya and Lottie could have a mechanic where you can’t be friends with both, you either aren’t friends with either or are super close with one or the other. 

THE BIRD CHAPTER. WHY. JUST WHY.

The shared dialogue and general problems with coding where characters act OOC and repeat scenes. This is a big one- I rarely play past day 23 anymore because it doesn’t feel like new content.

It just seemed like there were too many LIs after CA. They should’ve just made it so Kassam, Elijah, maybe Arjun, Elisa, and Jakub weren’t romanceable. The villa felt super crowded after day 25 and we didn't get as much facetime with the original crew, and I dunno I just didn’t like it.

This might be a slap in the face but I give Season 3 a 4/10. I wouldn’t be playing it if I weren’t so invested in the previous two seasons. 

I do like:

The beautiful female LIs!!! That we can actually couple with!! Without having to look up a tutorial! S2 obviously struggled with that and even with S1, as much as I adore Talia, there was only one female LI to couple with. Even the non-romanceable girls are SO pretty and have the potential to be good characters!

Even though I cannot stand Harry, I appreciate his character being there and being as fleshed out as it is. The reason I liked Rocco is because he talked about serious stuff- same with Harry. Mad props for the anger management thing, and he also is just the most distinct personality in the villa.

Seb’s character. I wish we’d get more of it without having to be friends with him, but the extra scenes (once again) are one of the few times this season we actually get to learn more about the personality and life of an Islander. After playing a friend route with him, he seems like the most developed character in the villa.

I really like how the LIs handled the most recent recoupling drama. Saying “I feel like MC doesn’t like me as much as I like her” and actually being salty that she was taken from them feels real. I love the conflict of AJ/Harry/Camilo being insecure that MC will leave them and getting defensive. Also, it adds a really interesting dynamic where MC either doesn’t tell them she likes them enough or MC is genuinely stringing people along. Love the potentially to have a morally gray MC that gets called out (and with the Tai situation too).

Tai is hot. I’m not really into any of the others’ designs, but they went off with Tai. Yasmin would probably be someone I’m into if that makeup was different and she didn’t dress like that. 

The clothing/outfit design clearly gives more thought to the personality of those wearing it rather than just having them look good. All the swimwear/evening wear gives off a distinctive vibe. I like that they’re not afraid to make the characters look a little ugly (@Harry) for the sake of showing you their personality. 

Viv!!!! She’s probably the character I’m vibing with the most, I love her chats and her story and she’s so pretty and aaaaaa. She’s this season’s Priya.

Unfortunately, a lot of those likes are kind of skin deep and pale in comparison to what I dislike:

The biggest thing is that this season changed the game’s demographic. S1 and S2 were written for 17-30 year olds, and S3 caters to 10-16 year olds now. Everything from the art style, the emojis, the content, and the literal rating on the app store reflects this. It feels more like an Episode game set in highschool than LITG. And that’s fine, I sometimes read Episode, nothing wrong if you enjoy that. But the reason I loved LITG so much is because the writing felt real and relatable. This season doesn’t have that same writing.

The challenges are BORING. Every single one has been ‘do something goofy to the boys’. That’s it. There’s no tension, no challenge, not even any stakes because the rewards aren’t even real. 

I hate how the relationships to the LIs and friends aren’t earned. There’s no reason for them to be as close as they are, and I feel like I don’t know anyone in the villa well. There’s just a big disconnect and no one had a defining personality outside of like 1 or 2 traits. 

The ‘deep topics’ dropped in seem really superficial. I like that we’re talking about consent, but it didn’t come up organically. It feels like the writers wanted to talk about how ‘calling girls bossy’ is bad and so they made up a scenario to talk about that- and poorly transitioned to that scene. I think everyone knows but no one wants to say that these topics would be more compelling if they were explored in the narrative- if Bill put the moves on Miki and she said no and he took it too far, then we could have that conversation. If Camilo called Iona bossy, then we could react and have that discussion. But the season is so afraid to make anyone seem bad. 

There’s no conflict, MC centric or otherwise. Probably because NO ONE HAS PERSONALITY outside of ‘nice girl’ and ‘slightly doofy boy’.

Literally, everyone is interested in MC but I don’t know why. WHY would Bill still like her after she left him? What about her do the different characters like/dislike? My MC is the most annoying, most disloyal, most dishonest character but no one notices or cares.

- Lysandre is, as confirmed via the Pokespe, of lithe build. However, he is not exclusively muscle, having a slight but noticeable softness that helps fill out an otherwise lanky frame.

- As a descendant of the younger brother of AZ, he is of large and imposing stature, roughly 7′2.

- His dietary habits are considered odd (by Pokemon standards) because of his preference to include meat. He argues this by stating the obvious, some species eat other species for the sake of life, and humans were meant for the same lifestyle, knowing that a strict vegetarian diet lacking certain supplements can result in increased risk to heart disease.

- He has several phobias, pre-Geosenge being: Atychiphobia (fear of failure), Emetophobia (fear of vomiting, like he’ll have anxiety attacks if he gets nauseated), and post-Geosenge being: Algophobia (fear of pain), Achluophobia (fear of darkness), Autophobia (fear of being alone), and Claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces).

- He adores children, often feeling envious when he passes young families on the streets of Lumiose.

- While not an addict, Lysandre tends to have a habit of smoking a cigarette every night before retiring to bed, often accompanied by a glass of red wine.

- He is a diagnosed pyromaniac, though a mild case. He will often stare at the flame of his cigarette lighter for a good five to ten minutes in an almost trance-like state. While he doesn’t feel the urge to burn things, his condition is still considered unhealthy.

- He loves listening to piano music as well as playing a few choice pieces himself, many of them by Danny Elfman and Beethoven.

- He usually sleeps in a pair of black sweatpants, only adding a longsleeved shirt when temperatures drop, and nothing else.

- He has a low sex drive, but when it gets ahold of him, he’s near insatiable.

- due to his rather large skeletal structure, his body compensates accordingly (you know where I’m going with this), therefore he is a good 13 inches, give or take.

- He takes his relationships very seriously, devoting himself to his partner and staying loyal through whatever hardships they face.

- He is fluent in several languages, and if made angry enough, can cuss you out in every single one of them, though never around children.

- Though very passionate about his views and opinions, he will take ample time to consider the opinion of others in casual conversation.

- It takes a god awful amount of pestering and bullying to make him lose his temper, but when he does, someone will leave the room with a bloodied nose.

- He is very considerate of his partner when intimate, ensuring that they are thoroughly satisfied by the end of the night.