#litg Claudia | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mrsbsmooth · 5 months

Note

I don't know if this is a safe space for me to share my opinion on S8 but I disagree with your take on WLW relationships in S8. As someone who is exclusively WLW, I've got to say that Season 8 is the worst season that I have ever played. It's not worth it. I regret every second that I have spent on it. I wish I never played it. I feel like I have wasted my time. Watching Claudia grind on Theo made me feel physically sick. If you're bi, you're automatically locked out of the WLW route and Bea dances for Claudia instead. If you're doing a WLW route, the two female LIs are merged together. There are only two female LIs and they're hidden behind a gem wall. You can't couple up with them until the final week. The male characters are forced on MC no matter how many times you reject them. Being LGBT is treated like a fun side mission. It's something you're only allowed to do behind closed doors. You can pay to make out with a girl in every episode and the other characters will keep pushing the OG guy and CA guy on you either way. If you're romancing a girl, you're made to feel like a cheater. The WLW routes in S8 are written to be a bonus thing for bi women to do once they finish the good routes. They are not written to be the main course. The S8 WLW routes are something to play around with but not something to commit to. S5 was no fun but at least we could be in an unofficial relationship with Dana and we could choose to befriend Alfie. We could couple up with Vicky in S7. S8 is like S6 but somehow even worse. The openly homophobic and racist comments that I have seen some straight players make about Bea and Hari are only making it harder to feel accepted. What hurts the most is that MC was a bombshell and she was not coupled up with her OG LI before the Casa. They could have let us pick a female LI the moment MC walked into the Villa. There was no better way to justify a WLW main route. The way they waste Luna and Felicity is unbelievable. I wouldn't recommend S8 to anyone who isn't super into the male LIs

Hi lovely, of course!! Always happy to hear a different opinion as long as they're respectfully put, which yours absolutely is, and as long as you don't mind me disagreeing back!

[Note: Sarah's just pointed out to me that you asked for a safe space and my response doesn't really do that and just disagrees with you. She's right, and I apologise for not being clearer about the fact I was planning to do so when I hit post. But you are always welcome to share your opinion here. I can't guarantee a safe space, but I can guarantee an open mind.] Because I do genuinely believe that the WLW routes in S8 are better than they have been previously.

I'm not going to be addressing homophobic and racist comments about Bea and Hari. My advice for those? Stay the hell off Reddit. I'm not getting into the way this fandom talks about race, especially for Asian islanders. I just want to talk about the WLW routes as that was the main point of your ask.

I want to make sure I've acknowledged and responded to everything you said, so please see below.

[This got long AF. TL;DR at the end.]

Locked out of routes, and Male LIs being forced on you

This isn't new to this season, and in my opinion it's been done dramatically better than previous seasons. I've played all of them, and almost every single season holds the female LI back until the end. Marisol, Elisa, Najuma, Angie, Dana, Lulu, Bella, Chloe, Flo, Bonnie, I don't think you could couple up with a single one of them until the final recoupling. The only exceptions were S1 and S3, I think? I believe you could get with Talia slightly earlier (and have Sammi come in later as a LI for the guy who otherwise would be dumped), and AJ/Yasmin you could couple up with and make Tai and Ciaran get together. But that's only 2 seasons from 8.

(Note: I see you said you could couple up with Vicky in S7, and I'll be honest, I barely played S7 as I found the writing itself extremely lacklustre. So I'll have to take your word for it that they somehow made that work.)

I get that it's frustrating to be separated from a female LI until late game. It's a sentiment I've heard every single season since I started playing alongside the releases. But realistically, this is how the game is structured. Love Island, as a premise, is based on heterosexual relationships. Pairing off and being in heterosexual couples, etc. Same as something like 'the Bachelor'. Two female contestants could be together, sure. But that's not how the show is structured. The only real solutions have been in S1 and S3, both of which I've already mentioned. I'd love to see more MLM couples made canon, or creative ways of letting us couple with women earlier, but I don't think there's one simple solution. This particular show is aimed at het couples. As unfair as it may seem, that's how the game is structured. (Crossing my fingers for canon MLM couples. PLEASE!)

I also disagree that WLW routes are written to be a bonus thing for bi women to do once they finish the good routes. Claudia's route has been a main route since day one in the villa. The fact that you can only have a relationship with either Theo OR Claudia means they intended from the very beginning to have whichever one of that couple you choose be the slow burn route- the route that you can't get on until the very end.

To say that 'Watching Claudia grind on Theo made me physically sick'-- Congratulations and welcome to the slowburn route 😂 I feel exactly the same way when Theo REJECTS ME OUTRIGHT and says he's only interested in Claudia, or when Suresh's heartrate gets raised the most by Lulu, or when I finally couple with Jake and he tells me I should pursue Levi. Don't you think the fact that it's had such an impact on you shows how well-written she is as a female LI? Claudia is AMAZING. But she's also bisexual. She's allowed to be torn between a male and a female LI and want to explore relationships with both, and I don't think it's fair to be angry that she's playing out all her options. That just means she's a well-written bisexual character. (Side note may I remind you that you've been able to take Claudia to the hideaway, and sleep in a bed with her, whereas Theo girls were only able to KISS the dude for the first time within the last week!!!! 😭) I think the only canonical lesbian routes are Angie from S4 and A.J. from S3. But even so, they're both questioning while in-villa and only come out either towards the end or in the post-season. You can watch AJ's route on Youtube if you didn't get a chance to play. Also, you're not locked out of the WLW route if you're bi/into men. Only if you're interested in Theo specifically. This is definitely somewhere they could improve-- I wanted Theo and Claudia, but eventually went back to play a straight route for Theo. However, I DESPERATELY wanted to flirt with Bea. It would've been wonderful if we'd been able to flirt with her separately. (I think I did get this option, but I believe it may have been a glitch). An option early in the game when the female LI asks you could be:

Yes, I'm into you!

No, I'm not into you, but I might be into other women

No, I'm not into women.

The Female LIs are merging together

Welcome to Love Island the Game by Fusebox games, where all the love interests merge and the personalities don't matter. You're not alone here, and it's not NEARLY as bad as previous seasons. Watch Najuma, Bruno, and JAMES have exactly the same dialogue in S4 despite being wildly different personalities. Watch Lewie, Jamal and Ryan be completely interchangeable. This isn't exclusive to WLW routes.

The female LIs are hidden behind a gem wall.

Again, this is the same for everyone, even players on a straight route. FB are greedy.

Being LGBT is treated like a side mission

It's something you're only allowed to do behind closed doors. You can pay to make out with a girl in every episode

This is hard. I get why you feel like this, anon, I really do. But I genuinely do think that this is the devs trying to give you something. They know it's frustrating to have to wait so long to couple with a female LI, so they try and give you bonus opportunities along the way to connect with your love interest. Almost every single smut scene written in the scripts has a female alternative. Again, I'm not saying that it's perfect, but having looked at and manipulated the scripts for four seasons now, I can absolutely assure you that this has not always been the case. They ARE improving and giving you more opportunities to spend time with your female LI than you had in previous seasons.

TL;DR

I'm not saying S8 is a perfect season for WLW routes.

The part I'm disagreeing with is where you said it's the worst season.

I absolutely disagree with that. There are far worse seasons. Even the golden child Season 2 didn't let you couple up with a woman until right at the end, watching her graft and grind on everyone BUT you. We also don't even know for sure that we can't couple up with a girl until the last week. The game's still being released. (I won't be surprised if that's the case though.)

I think Claudia and Bea are EXCELLENT female love interests in comparison with what we've had previously. They're both beautiful, they have unique personalities, they have very different routes (Claudia's confused between you and Theo, Bea's your bestie to lover and she's got terrible taste in men, dear god please save her).

I understand WANTING more WLW routes, but from a development point of view, there are simply not enough opportunities in the real-life structure of LITG to have fully blown out WLW routes. And even if they were, FB Games are not going to be financially motivated to do so. Their main customer base ($$$) is pursing a het route, so that’s who they’re creating for. They can't even get through the hetero routes without the characters merging personalities. There are other games doing this well, including fan-made games, which I'd recommend checking out. I don't have the link handy to the game pages, but check out @thatwheelchairchick, I believe she's working on an alternative game?

Anyway, I hope that clarifies my position on why I think they're worth playing. Sorry that it turned into an essay.

#litg wlw #litg claudia #litg bea #litg s8 #litg tempting fate

33 notes · View notes