#JUST A WLM/MLW BONDING MOMENT

[teenbiology]

short skirt / long jacket is a sexy song i’ll say it out loud

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's Reviews- The Phantom Agent

Welcome to the thirty-eighth official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about The Phantom Agent, which I have ranked on the "Gold Tier" at 8 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was during October-December 2022 (and completed in October 2023).

I really enjoyed this one, partly because I’m a sucker for secret agent/spy/James Bond type stories, and partly because there were a lot of refreshing elements of this. 

First, I love having a MC that is experienced at their profession rather than the usual newbie. I know PB probably makes the MCs newbies to make them more self-insertable, it is possible to have a self-insertable MC that is also experienced. 

Like, we’re playing a secret agent book. We already expect, going in, that MC is gonna be a secret agent, one way or another. Sometimes a newbie MC can make the introduction to the environment and the characters feel more natural, but it can also work to make them more experienced/familiar if you leave the backstory up to interpretation. Anyways. 

Second, this is probably the only GOC-LI story in the whole app where the wlm route is infinitely more interesting than the mlw version. I’ve seen some people suspect that this one was written with a mlw route in mind, rather than how most books tend to be written with wlm in mind. And I do think that’s possibly true, considering stuff like fem!body MC being complimented for their “broad shoulders” when they wear the premium doctor disguise, or m!Agent Grey’s swim trunks being described as “a swimsuit that hugs his hips” (extra pain on that last one btw, when are we gonna get male/masc!body swimsuits that actually hug their hips instead of the shopping bag ass swim trunks). 

But whatever the case, it still made for a damn good and refreshing wlm playthrough. MC can be flirty, but in a very suave way, rather than sultry and enticing manner that PB often gives to flirtatious MC behaviors. Instead, it’s characters like Nurse Lou and Alexis Reid who are flirty in an enticing manner. We’ve got Nurse Lou, who gets reeeaaallll hot and bothered for MC after learning they’re the one who saved the hospital. We’ve got Alexis Reid, who acts very seductive and almost femme-fatale-ish to MC. 

It’s such a great change in pace for MC’s dynamics with hookups and LIs. Even little moments with other GOC characters like MC checking out Agent Grey’s ass and hips in a vent, or Rowan hooking their leg around MC’s hip when they’re fighting, are just refreshing as all fuck. 

I didn’t care much for Agent Grey though. I mean, they were alright as a character and they do fit the role of the obligatory prissy/sultry female character that partners with James Bond, but at least those ones had some character. Grey was much more stale and didn’t really have a lot of personality outside of basically being a tsundere, so that made it weird when they tried to push them as a big romantic love interest. 

Rowan wasn’t bad either, but they weren’t exactly much better in terms of how much character they had and I found it harder to get a feel for their history with the MC. Similarly with Perdita, I never felt like they had as much importance as the writers wanted them to have. And they don’t really explain how Rowan’s death was faked or why they sided with the Architect. 

Also, I loved the music. Especially the opening theme, which is very clearly inspired by “No Time To Die”. The neurons that were activated in my brain when I watched that movie and we got to the parts of that song that sounded just like the tune from TPA. Like, the first few instrumental bits in the middle of the song are almost the exact same as the last part of the Choices soundtrack. Definitely adds to the whole “James Bond” feel of the story. If anything confirms that this story is PB’s take on a James Bond film, this is it.

Overall, I think it’s a fun story. Not one of the best-made stories, it’s still pretty uni-directional, but it’s still a breath of fresh air in its respective Choices era, and probably enjoyable if you like to chill out to spy stories.