#i wanna hear their hype hijinks !!

[jrueships]

fangirl gg !!!!

[cadybear420]

Came across a Choices Ask Game thread from 3-4 years ago and I couldn't help myself.

Anyone else who wants to join is welcome!

1.) What book(s) did you think were too overhyped but everyone loved?

7+ months ago I would have quickly said Ride or Die, but after my replay in May, I now like that book. So my next picks would be Crimes of Passion and Immortal Desires. They were good for what they were, but I couldn't quite get into the hype for them. To be fair, I've only played the first book for each of these, but even when they were just on their first books they were pretty hyped. But who knows, I might like them a lot more when I play their sequels.

Actually, I could maybe still put Ride or Die here if I wanted to. While I did come to like it after my second playthrough, I still wouldn't call it amazing or consider it one of PB's bests like many seem to do.

Distant Shores and Nightbound were both indredibly average to me as well, despite the former being about freaking pirates and time travel and the second one being a supernatural horror-themed story.

Laws of Attraction is also one that was very popular but hard to get into. When I first played Book 1, I couldn't stand how quickly they just went between cases. Luckily this was less of a problem when I replayed Book 1 and then played Book 2, but it was also still hard to follow the lawyer jargon. However, I did enjoy the characters and I loved that MC was a flexible blank slate, which does make it a series I want to like. So I'll probably give this one a second chance at some point.

I'm also tempted to say The Cursed Heart, it's one that gets a lot of love and while I enjoyed it, I didn't think it was amazing. But I'm kind of disqualifying it since not only have I only played Book 1, but also that pre-TCH 2 opinions were mostly divided. I remember lot of people hated Kieran kidnapping MC and that one option in a premium scene that leads to Kieran shoving MC's face into the ground. There are still people who hate that stuff, but the overwhelming majority nowadays seems to enjoy the series, especially with Book 2.

2.) What book(s) do you think deserve more hype?

Across The Void. Don't get me wrong, it has incomplete lore and inconclusive endings, but that's not really the story's fault as I remember hearing it was originally meant to have a book 2. Personally I found the good qualities to far outweigh the bad. It deserved so much better from PB and a hell of a lot more love from the fandom.

I also found Baby Bump really cute. It's not amazing and it has a lot of problems, but I never got why it was often deemed as one of the worst.

And maybe I'm just biased, but I also think the OG HSS trilogy deserves more hype. I guess it's technically one of the more popular and beloved Choices titles, but even then I feel like it doesn't get enough credit. Even though it may seem like a cheesy Disney Channel High School style story, the writing is actually quite polished, balancing out the thrilling high school hijinks with a vibrant cast of compelling and down-to-earth characters and character development. It's enjoyable and worthwhile, both as its own thing and as a companion to its predecessor (AKA the original HSS Prime mobile game).

Not only that, but it's quite rich in choices that actually affect the story/experience. Like, how many people know that you can make your MC a jerk to the Hearst kids in Book 3 and lose your tryouts spot over it even if their actual tryout was good? Or that the story acknowledges a Slow Burn romance if you choose to wait until MC and LI are official to have them kiss? Or that you can have MC completely screw up the Spirit Stick Heist? I've played this trilogy nine times already, I'm currently in my tenth playthrough, and there are probably like 50 more different playthroughs I wanna do for the different route/outcome combinations. The MC is just so flexible and wildcard, and to me that's peak Choices MC.

3.) What was a book series that you think did NOT need a sequel or more than 1 sequel?

The Nanny Affair would have been soooooo much better off as a standalone. I actually really like the ending of TNA 1, where Sam and MC are getting pinged with news headlines about Sam leaving Sofia at his wedding, and they start anticipating all the trouble they're gonna be in. It's actually got a touch of self-awareness to it that you usually don't get in smutty single-LI romance Choices stories.

Books 2 and 3 however just drag everything on, trying so hard to make it seem like Sam and MC have genuine feelings of love for each other, even though their relationship is clearly mostly lust-based. Then again, one of the smut scenes in Book 3 has an option that implies MC is putting a finger into Sam's bootyhole. And even over two years later, it is still the only scene in Choices that more directly depicts a female character anally penetrating a male (or male-coded) character. So maybe the suffering is worth it.

The first book of Surrender was pretty mid on its own, but the ending it got could have worked as a series and book finale. Book 2, however, just... made it all so much worse. Book 2 is the reason why the Surrender series is on my permanent Choices shitlist. As the worst title of the entire app.

The switch to a new MC and cast felt very arbitrary and unjustified. Not only were the returning characters from OG utilized poorly, but everything about it just did not feel like HSS. No flexibility in your main character or activity, which greatly cheapens the whole "you can be whoever you wanna be" and "you'll always be accepted no matter who you are" themes of the previous iterations; no sense of Berry being "high school but actually good" as it relies purely on trying to showcase average high school experience; so many of the side characters were useless and felt like overly mean-spirited middle schoolers rather than actually stressed and irrational high-schoolers; and the and finale and sendoff to the franchise as a whole was inconclusive dogshit. It was like "HSS" was an afterthought to CA. I'll give this its own analysis one day.

OG HSS did not need HSS:CA as a spinoff. Don't get me wrong, HSS:CA is pretty cute and does bring some interesting situations and characters into the HSS canon. But when you really think about it, it easily could have been its own new title, and it probably would have been better off if it was.

4.)What book(s) did you think needed a sequel/another sequel?

OG HSS Trilogy, the main cast of that one deserved a far better sendoff then the bullshit one that was the HSS:CA finale.

Laws of Attraction. That ending was so inconclusive.

Hero, an obvious one because the story ended right on a cliffhanger.

Across The Void, PB should have stuck to giving this one a second book. Instead we get these super-rushed endings and for what?

5.) What LI(s) do you think are overrated?

I'd maybe put It Lives here, but part of me is also kind of glad PB didn't make the third book because the It Lives Within fanproject is chockablock full of "PB could never"s. Granted their reason for cancelling it in the first place was kinda unjustified but yeah.

I'm not sure really. Maybe Gabe and Cas from ID, but I don't have strong opinions on them. It's moreso that I'm just not as into the hype for them as most.

6.) What LI(s) do you think are underrated?

Ajay Bhandari from HSS:CA, though with him it's moreso overhated than underrated. Didn't Ajay warn MC about Danielle in the earlier chapters? Why would he so easily believe MC was the one who sabotaged OG MC's auditions? Or at the very least, tell Danielle + Team C(U)NTs (Clint, Natalie, Trevor) to fuck off with ostracizing MC. Like they weren't just accusing MC falesly, they started being outright cruel to them.

Ajay is a character who cares so much about the play wanting to go perfect, so much so that he initially banned cellphones from the auditorium during rehearsal because he thought they'd be distracting or disruptive. Surely you'd want to be a hardass on other crew members who are acting like assholes??? I think his behavior during MC's accusation is just OOC, hence why I don't hate him. It's a problem with the writing rather than the character.

7.) Which LI's were most forgettable?

IDK. I think I've forgotten them.

9.) Finally, what book do you think would have been better/more popular if it WASN'T genderlocked? (This goes for both LI's and MCs)

Witness MC could have and should have been GOC. I found the book pretty average-with-issues upon replay, but I personally might have liked it a tad more if it was GOC. We rarely if ever get stories about men getting swept off their feet by protective bodyguard characters! (But sure, muh few female-locked stories).

I certainly would have enjoyed Roommates With Benefits a lot more if the MC could be male. Imagine, the studious goody-two-shoes "good boy" gets awakened to a more party-loving sex-loving side by the University's resident fuckboy/fuckgirl who happens to be his roommate.

Ride or Die was pretty fun as it is, but part of me still feels it would have been somewhat spicier if MC and Logan were both GOC.

With Every Heartbeat also, give me ONE good reason why needed to be genderlocked. Same with BloodBound. Seriously, you could have made the Bloodkeeper thing go to any gender and the story would remain exactly the same.

[cezulian]

I don’t wanna sound ungrateful or shitty bc I don’t know the whole album-making process and maybe I don’t appreciate it as much as I should bc I’m an art bitch and a writing bitch not a music producing bitch but I kinda feel like. Cracker Island as an album could have been way more. Like they had a lot of great ideas and stuff in there, some real interesting running motifs but idk. Some of it felt a little unfinished, maybe just because it was so short. Also maybe because it was hyped up SO MUCH with all the social media stuff and the extra super special deluxe platinum gold fuckable vinyl editions they put out, I just kinda feel like…god this might sound shitty…but like that’s it? Damon is capable of huge things, but idk I’m trying and failing to be enthusiastic about this album when a majority of the tracks that weren’t singles kind of just bled together for me and I’ve already forgotten the melodies to them.

I mean like I said in a previous post I really enjoyed “Tormenta” and “Possession Island” of the new, non-singles from pre-release but “Oil”, “Tarantula”, “Tired Influencer”? I listened to those two hours ago and swayed along with em but I don’t remember em at all otherwise. I also don’t think trying to be so lore-heavy did them any favors either, but that’s a whole other post. And its not even like they had trouble with deadlines or anything either, the album was done for FOREVER but it was just like 10 songs most of which I do not remember. Idk.

This whole phase has felt like that point in a tv show where its been several seasons now and the creators are extremely aware of the fandom and preferences and stuff so they start to get obnoxious about winking at the audience with every fucking move they make narratively, like they can’t stop going “hey fans! We see you and we hear you, so we are taking your fan favorite characters and amping it up to eleven! Enjoy these hijinks we designed based on data the producers have collected that document the kinds of crazy stuff you enjoy seeing! We’re just like you!” and then the integrity is just gone. It feels studio-lit and formulaic, and again that’s about this phase, not the album. The phase needed less, the album needed more. Idk man. I’m sleepy tired I’m gonna go listen to Humanz and TNN again.