#pb mtfl

[hotchocolatelovesyou]

who the fuck thought that having so many chapters, such short chapters, was a good idea?

Do not let me catch you doing this shit ever again @pixelberry

[blaineslesbian]

Okay, so I know MC canonically has feelings for Mason, and I'm fine with that, but when tf did she steal him from Ava?? I also wasn't aware that we're "seeing" him? 😭

Yeah Ava deserves better, but their breakup was on Mason, not MC

[yourqueenb]

I wasn’t crazy about HSS like a lot of other people seem to be, but it was still fairly enjoyable and decent. MTFL on the other hand was hot garbage. So someone saying HSS was worse is mind blowing to me

Sent by anonymous

‘HSS was a terrible and boring book and completing it felt like a chore from hell. It was worse than MTFL.’

POST/CONFESSIONS DO NOT REFLECT THE MOD’S PERSONAL OPINIONS!

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's Reviews- My Two First Loves

Welcome to the twenty-seventh official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about My Two First Loves, which I have ranked on the "Rotting Flesh Tier" at 2 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was back in April-June 2021.

Oh boy! Oh boy oh boy oh boy! I could write a whole essay on everything wrong with this…  

So I will. 

To put it briefly: this story feels like it was adapted from a Wattpad story that was written by a 12-year-old whose only ever exposure to high school media and depictions of teenage sexuality was Glee, and then had serious queer and mature themes slapped onto it in order to make it seem better. Y’know, the equivalent of trying to polish a turd.

Or, heck, it’s probably PB’s attempt at ripping off “The Kissing Booth”, seeing as both have a MC in a love triangle between her childhood best friend and a bad boy named Noah, after all. Which, funnily enough, was also originally adapted from some tween’s Wattpad story. That’s about the equivalent to a dog eating some rotten food, shitting it out, then another dog finds it, eats it, and then shits it right out again. And THEN that second dog’s owner comes along to try to polish that double-toured turd. 

Number 1: The LGBTQ+ tag is clearly an attempt to appease the queer players that they probably think are being whiny. 

Ava’s arc about realizing she’s a lesbian who had been experiencing compulsory heterosexuality is pretty solid in a vacuum. But her being an LI was so blatantly only a last-minute decision PB made during the writing process, and it shows because Ava’s CG just uses her game sprite while Mason’s and Noah’s are fresh art. 

MC starts to fall for Ava sometime around at least 30 chapters in, but we don’t get to officially pursue her as a romance option until about 70 chapters in. I get delaying her as a love interest a bit because of the whole thing with MC realizing she’s bi, but even then, there’s just so few opportunities for building any kind of relationship with her that it hardly feels authentic. 

Speaking of, MC’s supposed bi awakening is completely rushed and treated with about as much value as a Family Guy cutaway gag, even outside of Ava being sidelined. As someone who realized I wasn’t straight three years ago and is still questioning if I’m bi or straight, I understand that people take different amounts of time to figure out their sexuality. But this MC does not spend any period of time figuring out her bisexuality. She basically just goes “Welp, guess I’m bi now”, and then it’s back to being indecisive as per usual except now there’s a female love interest in the mix too.

To add insult to injury, "discussions of sexuality" is placed in a "player discretion" warning, alongside "racial tensions" and "occasionally violence" to boot. How the fuck is discussion of sexuality even remotely on the same level as either of those? If they meant discussions or depictions of homophobia then maybe I could understand… but I don’t even recall seeing any depictions of homophobia in the book, so including this in the freaking warning tags is pointless at best and kind of insulting at worst. 

Not to mention, plenty of other Choices books like MOTY, ILS, D&D, etc. have had discussions about sexuality/LGBTQ+ stuff before, and didn't have to warn us about it. Not even MAH, a later book which had discussions about freaking conversion therapy for Christ’s sake. Sure, some of those books did have content warnings, but they were generally vague and/or mainly warned for violence, and didn’t warn specifically for depictions of queerphobia or discussions of sexuality. Yet for some reason, MTFL feels the need to include a player discretion warning for sexuality discussions, even though it contains far less harsher queer themes. 

Number 2: The portrayal of teen sexuality in this does not feel earnest. 

Let me just say, I found it very jarring how this one was much more sexually charged compared to PB’s other high school books. PB is usually way more “safe” and PG-13 at most when writing high school characters. Even in books like ROD and WEH, where the characters are 18+ and do have smutty scenes, it’s clear that those books are a lot more restricted compared to the adult cast books.  

I mean, with WEH, the safeness makes sense– it was meant to be a serious and tender story from the start, and it does actually follow through on those themes. But ROD feels like it could have easily been as horny with its writing as MTFL was, what with being about a studious “good girl” who goes rebellious. In fact, the story’s loading screen was pretty infamous at first for looking “steamier” than other covers and loading screens.

In actuality though, ROD had only, what, one smut scene? And despite a lot of MC’s outfits being revealing or arguably sensual, there are practically no moments where MC fawned over how “sexy” a revealing diamond outfit looked. Like, I’m pretty sure there were just little to no sexually charged scenes in general. 

My point is, whatever compelled PB to make MTFL *this* sexualized is beyond me. My guess is the fact that PB called this one a story about “navigating sexuality” and thus wanted to focus more on the aspects of sexuality, but if that’s the case… hoo boy, did they do a terrible job at it. 

I don’t really care about the hypersexualized writing of the teenage characters on its own, or how the characters were initially not confirmed 18+ when the earlier smut scenes were written. What I find far more important is the fact that this sort of cliche and formulaic hypersexualized writing is in a book that markets itself as being about “a young woman navigating love and sexuality for the first time”.

Teens do indeed have sex and can be all over the place with their hormones and sexuality. A lot of us have been there in some way, myself included. And there are ways to talk about that type of stuff in a manner that is silly and/or exaggerated, but still earnest and respectful. But the particular way that MTFL handles super-horny teen sexuality, specifically while claiming to be a coming-of-age story, is neither earnest nor respectful. 

The way this story handles these sorts of topics is the writing equivalent to doing a surgery with Fisher-Price toy surgery tools. It’s genuinely difficult to take MC “navigating her sexuality for the first time” seriously when has to constantly blubber about how Mason and Noah are so muscular or how a diamond outfit has “naughty little thigh highs” or how she wants to do a “down and dirty” cheer routine with Ava for Mason and Noah. 

That last one especially feels like the kind of stuff we’d see more in a campy chick flick that doesn’t take itself seriously. Honestly, if this was a more campy high school book with the tone of DLS or the 2023 movie “Bottoms”, it probably wouldn’t be as glaring. But in a book that markets itself as a coming-of-age story, the tone feels completely off and the whole book honestly felt like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. 

(Also, while we’re on this topic of MC’s premium outfits, I really fucking despise how MC gets so upset about wearing "mom clothes" if you choose to wear the free modest clothing instead of the revealing diamond outfit in Chapter 2. Ugh. Yes, the dad was being shitty about not letting MC dress how she likes, but all it does is it just makes you feel like shit for not wanting to dress in more revealing clothes. Stop making me feel bad for wanting to wear simple non-revealing clothing. Same goes for you, Chris Romantic Getaway story with your “the regular jerseys aren’t cute enough for girls to wear, we have to cut one up into a cleavage crop top in order to make it good for us girls to wear” bullshit.) 

And it just slaps you in the face with these sexual moments too, placing them in frequently whenever it feels like it, and the amount of it that actually contributed to any coming-of-age navigating-sexuality are few and far between. Honestly, it felt like it was trying way too hard to look "mature" with how it handled sexuality (as well as some of the other stuff like them drinking alcohol). Like it maybe was trying to portray teens realistically, but it only does so at a very shallow level. 

It's literally just "Look at the teens that talk about sex and like doing sexy things and having sex and doing grown-up stuff like drinking alcohol, see how MATUUURRREEE they are!" and they don't do anything more with it. It's just tacked on so they can pretend their book is a realistic story about maturing/being mature, when it fails at actually doing so.

I mean, I guess you could argue that the MC is meant to be seen as more messy and hormonal. And in that case, I could give it a pass. But, again, MC’s supposed arc of “navigating sexuality” never goes anywhere from that until the very last few chapters where you choose which LI she ends up with. It’s pretty much the same crap all throughout the book. MC doesn’t navigate sexuality, she just runs around aimlessly in it like a chicken with its head cut off.

Number 3: All the serious themes they try to have in the story are overshadowed by MC’s stupid indecisiveness plot. 

I’ve already said MTFL tries way too hard to make its story seem “mature” with the trashy way it sexualizes its characters. I’ve said it feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Honestly though, this just sums up MTFL’s writing in general. 

MTFL has quite a handful of subplots, and I will admit, all of them are pretty compelling. You have Ava figuring out she’s lesbian, Mack dealing with gang drama, and Mason and Noah dealing with their past and Mason’s dad’s abusive behaviors. And an admittedly decent arc about MC discovering her love for photography instead of cheerleading. 

And then you have MC going on about how she can’t decide between her love interests, which is just the bad apple of the bunch that ruins the rest. It just makes it very hard to take everything else seriously. You ever seen that one meme where the Power Rangers put their hands in a circle but then a Teletubbie tries to join in? It’s the writing-equivalent to that, and MC’s indecisiveness plot is the Teletubbie. 

And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if MC’s indecisiveness wasn’t the main focus plot of the whole book. I want to take these other storylines seriously. I want to take this story as a whole seriously. But how can I when the main focus of the story is so god damn shallow? No matter how many "soft positive heartfelt" piano tracks and “so sad and tragic sad” piano tracks from WEH they try put over it, it doesn't change the fact that the focus is MC going on and on about being unable to choose between Mason, Noah, and Ava. 

I get teens are shallow and can have shallow issues, but did we really need it to be that big of a focus of the story? Especially when the way it handles it is completely empty? Something like OG HSS was great because even though a lot of the issues the characters had were seemingly shallow and basic (such as the band fighting over which song to play), they do give a little more depth to it and reason to care about it (ie. Aiden starts to feel like a failure at music because of the band infighting). MTFL just throws MC’s indecisiveness at you for 95 chapters and expects you to take it seriously with nothing else surrounding it. 

And they try to pull the twist on the title at the end where it’s all like “LI and photography, the two greatest loves of MC’s life”. Which is an interesting idea in concept, except it feels so artificial and non-earned when MC’s romance plot was spending 95 chapters being unable to decide between the LIs. 

Number 4: It reuses way too much from HSS. 

I know this is a less severe issue, but I just can’t get past it. Sprites, backgrounds, school colors… even plot points like the corrupt principal embezzling from the school, or MC and LI(s) being locked in a large school room (remember when HSS:CA MC and Ajay were locked in the auditorium?). Heck, even MC having lost her mom and having a photography passion connected to that, rings way too similar to one of Autumn’s arcs from the freaking HSS PRIME GAME! Oh yeah, and both of those characters have a love triangle with a golden boy and a bad boy. Holy hell. 

Easily the most noticeable part is the sprites. In my playthrough, I counted 7 whole HSS sprites that were used in MTFL: Sydney became Iris, Payton became Toni, Frank became this random kid in a flashback for Mason and Noah's past, Morgan became a kid in Elijah's gang named Lucy, Lorenzo became Chad, Aiden's mom became Asian Noah's mom, Skye's dad became White Mason's dad (PB really said use that sprite for abusive dads huh). And there’s probably more, I’m sure. 

And the worst offense? They even reuse the iconic bird's-eye view of Berry High in MTFL. Call me petty if you must, but that's just criminal. It's one thing to reuse and alter a bunch of the sprites, uniforms, and backgrounds from the series but to reuse another book series' iconic background like that? Honestly, it feels rather insulting. They couldn't even be arsed to change the "Go Tigers!" on the football field, that’s how little sense it makes to use that background outside of HSS. Fuck’s sake.

I know it’s kind of the norm for Choices to reuse assets throughout different series, but the fact that they do it so much here and majority of it is from HSS just rubs me the wrong way. At best, it’s jarring and lazy. And at worst, it comes off as trying way too hard to be a “more mature” version of HSS. When in reality, it makes HSS:CA’s side characters look like Citizen Kane in comparison. I mean, at least Clint and Natalie and MC stopped whinging about Rory ⅓rd of the way through the series. 

At least when other high-school-setting books like ROD, WEH, and ILITW were made, they at least somewhat bothered to change up a few things and make it feel like an actually different school. They changed up the backgrounds a bit, used different school colors and uniforms, and didn’t reuse nearly as many sprites from HSS.  

In MTFL, all they did was make new cheer uniforms for the non-reused sprites and remove the Berry High logos from everything HSS that they used. Yeah they made some changes, but it’s clear that they didn’t put nearly the same amount of effort into it as they did in the other high school setting books. 

All it does is just make me miss HSS. Like, stop toying with my heart by piggybacking off of a better series (that has better queer rep too) so much. It’s to the point where it feels like they should have just used the time making this book to instead make a HSS senior year (Which, y’know, would be nice, especially since the sendoff we got in HSS:CA 3 was absolute flaming fucking garbage). 

So… in all honesty, I don’t hate this book. But it had a lot of things that annoyed me to no end and it sure as fuck is disappointing wasted potential. It had a great opportunity to be a nice queer coming-of-age story. But instead it felt like a Kissing Booth rip-off with serious themes only hamfisted in order to make it seem more “mature”.

[choices-binglebonkus]

It still just baffles me that the one teen story PB makes that is literally advertised to have themes of "navigating sexuality for the first time" does the absolute worst job of handling teen sexuality, compared to the teen stories that don't have those themes.

MTFL, overall, is a book that didn't know what it wanted to be. One moment, a character has an arc revolving around a serious and possibly mature issue. Another moment, MC blubbering over an outfit with "naughty little thigh highs" (ugh) or "OMG Mason and Noah are so muscular and manly" (uugghh) or wanting to do a "down and dirty" cheer routine for the male LIs (uuuugggghhhh) comes along to slap you in the face.

I'd get it if it was in a teen story that was meant to be a bit more campy (I'd still hate it cause it's so generic and gender-stereotypey but at least it'd be more at home there). But in a story advertised to heavily revolve around more serious issues? It's completely tone-deaf.

And the worst part is that none of these hypersexual moments contribute to anything. Honestly, the way these characters are written as horny and hormonal feel hamfisted into the story solely so the writers can brag about how this one is "more mature" than their other high school books. When in reality, these characters are so immature that they make HSS:CA's side characters look like they're from Citizen Kane.

MC doesn't navigate sexuality, she just runs around in circles in it like a chicken with its head cut off.

That last sentence is such a perfect summary of the book omfg I applaud this, and I applaud you

[bryceslahela]

I’d say choices needs a dark fantasy story but considering the last few years of books we’ve gotten I know damn well that no one at PB HQ would know how to run a series in that genre

i guess the fae book would count? with kieran? as a dark fantasy but i agree. pb have shown recently that they really cannot handle sensitive topics with care. i mean… look at mtfl and the police scene.

[yourqueenb]

your response to the ask abt number of chapters in Choices books made me remember that atv, mtfl, and weh are 100 chapters long, and now I'm wondering why PB thought that was a good idea (both in general and also for those books) considering they usually do like 16 or at most 25ish - like why not make them series and divide those stories into several books instead of doing 1 super long book?

that said, do you think there are any kinds of stories that would actually benefit from being that long? or do you feel that super long books are generally not a good idea

They always randomly decide to try to push the envelope every now and then. I know ATV was 22 chapters. And I believe they had done that many once or twice before that with TRR, but it wasn’t common for books to be that long at all and really still isn’t now. I think it made sense for ATV to be a longer book. But even with all those chapters, they still didn’t develop the story very well? Which just made it feel longer than it actually was. There’s no reason we as players should know barely anything about the two opposing sides in the war and the cultures of the different planets and stuff. Why even put all of that in there if you’re not going to explore it?

I can also kind of see why they tried 100 chapters with MTFL because 1) it was their first daily book and 2) there’s lots to write about when it comes to characters who are seniors in high school. But the execution was terrible. Still can’t wrap my head around why they decided to make Witness (I’m assuming that’s what you meant instead of WEH) 28 chapters though. That’s a mystery to me because it could have and should have been wrapped up in 16-18 chapters like pretty much every other book.

To actually answer your question though, I think they could make longer books in certain genres and they could actually be good if they finally figured out how to balance shit out. Definitely not 100 chapters long, but maybe like 23-30 (although anything over 25 is pushing it). We could probably get a very intricate and well developed mystery, psychological thriller, period piece, or action book. But I don’t expect PB to actually be able to handle something like that. So I don’t think it’s a good idea for them to attempt it

[what-do-you-mean-theyre-evil]

GET THAT BITCH!!!

Might I fucking add, @ anon

The worst part is that the chapter we're even mentioning came out AFTER the arrest scene in MTFL so PB had all the time in the world change it.

No.

What a load of complete bs. I will not tolerate anyone defending racism in my inbox.

What Poppy did to Zoey was absolutely racist. Zoey is a Black woman who was publicly humiliated and literally has fucking tomatoes thrown at her. Her past arrest for being shoplifted is broadcasted to the entire school and the only reason she was arrested in the first place was because she was the only Black girl there and was peer pressured into it.

There is a very dangerous and harmful stereotype that Black people are criminals and Poppy broadcasting Zoey’s past reinforces that racist stereotype. Poppy used a crime committed by a Black woman that carries racist undertones to specifically bring her down which is what actually happens to Black people in real life.

Anti-Blackness is rooted so deeply into our society and if you can’t understand why what Poppy did was racist then I suggest you get out of my inbox and fucking educate yourself.

This is some pathetic bs and honestly it makes me sick to see you making excuses and trying to justify Poppy’s racist actions that publicly targeted and humiliated a Black woman. And don’t drag another person into this because of the hate they received as a way to invalidate the point myself and many, many others have made.

This is honestly just so fucking gross. Go defend Poppy’s racism somewhere else.

[they-callme-ami]

Has anyone done this yet?

[hotchocolatelovesyou]

Well, I reached chapter 61 and the offer has now ended so that means that I will probably not see Noah again (eh, might be tempted once or twice) because no way in hell I'm gonna waste keys on a book with 100 (?) chapters - especially if each chapter is max 5 minutes, the plot is not all that, I already decided for MC who she's gonna end up with, and I don't even like MC or other characters that much.

Bye Noah, you deserve better. A good lawyer, a good therapist and someone who'll be there for you no matter what. acab.

[maxwell-pls]

I can’t believe MTFL chapter 63 just blue balled me 😭 can y’all just let me have Noah please

[somerandomjewelleryonthefloor]

PB literally released a Titanic fanfic book called "ship of dreams", have been using ai art, and produced MTFL...

PB lost its charm, it's never making sense anymore lolllllll

Let's hope the company changes its ways, the youth revolt for change, and it goes back to its charm because FUCK

Also how are they gonna do this yet make us the main character for the musical. Babe.

I'm rewriting HSS:CA to attune to what would be more right because BRUV this book is really itching me.

This spinoff is like a tag at the back of your shirt that's itchy in the sides but smooth on the front.

It isn't the worst thing, but it rubs it's sides on your skin sometimes and itches and it hurts yet it only does it every so often and not constantly, so you can deal with it but MAN is it hard to not rip it off in public and look crazy.

[playchoicesconfessions]

Sent by @cadybear420

‘I could go into paragraph upon paragraph about everything wrong with MTFL. But I think the best way I can sum it up is: It reads like PB adapted an untamed 12-year-old's Wattpad story and then hamfisted some serious themes about sexuality and race into it in order to make the story seem more "mature".’

POST/CONFESSIONS DO NOT REFLECT THE MOD’S PERSONAL OPINIONS!

[cadybear420]

If HSS (both trilogies) were made by 2022-2024 Choices.

I've seen a couple of posts on the Reddit such as "If ILITW/TRR/ES/etc. were made today", and it got me wondering the same for HSS. So I've decided to do my own for both HSS trilogies.

Feel free to share your own speculations!

OG HSS

There would probably be only 1 or 2 LIs, both forced upon the MC, and both made race (and possibly gender) customizable. Michael would definitely be a LI, him and Caleb for duo GOC LI because I know PB would not be able to resist the "golden boy jock/bad boy rebel" LI duo. Though I can maybe see them having Michael and Maria. Emma I could see being a third (possibly race-customizable) token canon female LI. Aiden would certainly not be eligible as a LI because modern Choices (with the exception of maybe MAH) seems to hate LIs that are shy, awkward, or softies, especially if they're male or male-coded.

The book would probably still be GOC, thankfully. Then again, I wouldn't put it past modern Choices to want a genderlocked high school book where they default the MC into being a cheerleader. Speaking of which...

There's no WAY modern PB would have the activity choice system, quite simply because the multiple routes and dialogue accommodations would require putting in actual effort. Modern PB would definitely try to do a genderlocked default-cheerleader MC, but I also feel like they could default MC to being a jock since Book 1 was a bit jock centric. Or heck, they likely wouldn't even give MC an activity at all because god forbid we have proactive MCs.

Honestly, I feel like just about all of the different options and possible outcomes- the spirit stick heist, tryouts, junior captain, hoco/prom crowns- we have for the MC would be nerfed, because they would require putting in actual effort. So rather than having a MC where we can actively decide who they are and how they behave, they'd probably give the MC like one random set thing they're into and have all their dialogue choice options be lacking in variation and story impact.

Assuming Caleb is a (or the) LI, they'd make Zoe a full on straw loser villain woman who exists solely to have petty catfights with MC over Caleb and thus make MC seem like the better match for Caleb. They'd probably have her not be caught cheating until later on into Book 1, nerf her Book 3 redemption arc entirely, and instead have her be unable to move on from Caleb by then and hold resentment against MC for "ruining their relationship".

They might age everyone up to 18+ (with our MC being an incoming senior), but probably wouldn't include smut scenes considering the MTFL fiasco. I mean, ID had zero smut scenes despite its confirmed 18+ cast. If this was 2018-2020 Choices, they probably would have a couple of smut scenes, but 2022-2024 Choices would definitely not. Probably a hell of a lot more lap sitting though. But only MC sitting in LI's lap, except for Emma where it's reversed, because having a male LI sitting in female MC's lap might lose them those precious pennies from straight women.

Considering Prime getting sunset in August 2022 and PB having deleted the Twitter account for it, I'm seriously doubting how much modern PB cares about that game. This version probably would not have HSS Prime characters in it at all. Heck, they'd probably just not even make it "HSS".

HSS:CA

It would be single LI, Rory being that LI. Ajay and Skye become merely recurring side characters.

I feel like maybe PB would be more likely to genderlock this one. Or maybe not, IDK.

Danielle would be a lot more outwards and over-the-top of an antagonist. As in, we see all her behaviors up-front. She'd be a full-on straw-loser villain woman for MC to compete with over Rory.

The same thing about sex scenes for OG would apply here too. Instead of MC being freshly-graduated from middle school, they'd probably make them a incoming senior transfer student from a private school.

Assuming this continues from the Choicesified version of OG HSS and not from the one we actually have, the OG gang will have graduated by the time CA starts (given that they'd have all been made seniors in this version). In other words, we now have an actually valid reason for CA to throw out the OG gang instead of keeping them around for superficial nostalgia bait. That's one positive I guess.

[choicest]

this... sooo cute 😭😭😭😭😭 i want this. this cute little moments with him.

[choices-binglebonkus]

Y'know what my main problem is with the "lean muscle female with hand on hip" body sprite (like the one that's the body sprite for f!Lancelot, f!Vic, f!Manu, MTFL Ava, f!Clarke, Aisha, Eiko, f!Kayden, Angel). The fact that it's nowadays it's pretty much their go-to sprite every time they have a female or GOC LI is more tough or athletic.

As a woman who aspires to be buff, it just feels like a kind of a lazy way to represent buff women? Especially when they've shown in the past to be perfectly capable of having a variety of different buff female sprites– Imtura from BOLAS, the female orc MC in BOLAS, Naomi from VOS, Deimos from ATV, Kepler from ATV, Zaniah from ATV, f!Kieran from TCH and the female elf MC from BOLAS... if they so insist on reusing body sprites why don't they ever reuse those?

And, I mean, we all know PB is already incredibly shite with body type diversity in Choices (there are literally like 2 male LIs ever that can be considered non-muscular), but this is one of the many issues with it and it's been bothering me for a bit. Tired of seeing the same thing every time.

Absolutely right anon