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Every time I think Choices has declined to its lowest it’s just gotten worse and worse and worse.
Give me back stories like The Nanny Affair (PLEASE I NEVER THOUGHT ID EVER SAY THIS 💀). Give me back the ILB and OPH MC. Give me back human-made book covers and human-written stories.
Even when things were actual shit I had no idea how good we had it.
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I still can't fkn believe how some supervisor @ PB looked at the new MC designs and genuinely thought "those look so awesome, such a huge improvement over the old ones" and actually green-lighted the changes 🤯
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You either die a hero
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Or live long enough to see yourself become the villain
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In my honest opinion, Blades could be a 5 book series if Pixelberry were dedicated enough. It's sad to think that Blades book 3 may be our last hoorah. Truly the death of decent writing by the Pixelberry team.
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I finally figured out why all the party members in Book 2 come out as so frustratingly self-focused to me.
It's not because they're all struggling with their own stuff. It's all about shelving your agenda- that thing in a relationship where you go, 'You need my support right now, so we're going to worry about my thing later.'
And MC does this constantly.
I just barely escaped death and found out a year passed, but is Kade recovered from the Shadow Court?
I just almost drowned, but it's time to comfort this owlbear cub and unpack Valax's trauma!
I just almost died twice to the Ash Empress, but is Nia coping with being corrupted okay?
Which can be okay. Shelving your agenda is part of a healthy relationship of any kind.
The problem is that no one does it back. I think Tyril and Nia kind of sum up the whole group's attitude:
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But I don't think MC was ever going to be 'ready.' Someone else was always going to have to 'unshelve' it for them and make an effort to put the focus on MC.
Now, adventurers don't tend to be particularly well adjusted people. The full party has got maybe 1.5 healthy childhoods and 4 living parents between them (judged pretty generously). But it still feels like the others can't get it together enough to ask if MC is okay. Not that MC really makes it easy! I see MC as someone who is so used to pushing their feelings down to focus on whatever work is in front of them, they almost can't access their own emotions.
Which is why we had the brief glimpses of panic and the breakdown moment in Chapter 17. I think the breakdown makes sense mechanically. Kade is the one character your MC is guaranteed to have a strong connection to and this way it's not gated behind any diamond choices (like some really crucial character moments with Aerin and Valax, no I'm not bitter about it). But that makes it feel like the whole party has been neglecting MC while Kade immediately sees MC and goes, "Dude, you are not okay. Talk to me.'
And MC tries to turn it into comforting Kade! Kade has to actively argue with MC to make them actually acknowledge that they're having a hard time.
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MC for some reason can't or won't talk about their own trauma and Kade (who's only been around for 5 minutes) is the one who has to actively force the issue for MC's own good. Which is not a great look for the rest of the found family.
Afterward, Mal and Nia both seem to address it without really getting the point. Mal says, "We know things didn't go the way any of us wanted." (Which could mean... anything. But I'm feeling generous.)
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Protecting MC from death is not an equivalent exchange to talking about feelings! It is in fact dodging the feelings by focusing on practicalities again! Y'all better get it together in Book 3, I swear.
Overall, MC constantly delays addressing their own vulnerability and issues to focus on everyone else. And the others don't know how to do the same thing for MC, so the pattern just gets more engrained and damaging.
Except for Kade, my perfect boy.
Sources (they're fun, I promise!):
Screenshots from Neckrone Shen's playthroughs of Blades on YouTube, my go-to for whenever I can't remember something or don't have the screenshots myself.
I think @oh-so-youre-a-nerd's incredible piece 'Take Take Take' kept rattling around in my head until I figured out how to articulate why it felt this way: https://www.tumblr.com/oh-so-youre-a-nerd/736449955360899072/take-take-take?source=share
The language of 'shelving your agenda' came from the very good Cinema Therapy video about Kristoff from Frozen:
youtube
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Cadybear's Reviews- Wake the Dead
Welcome to the thirty-third official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about Wake the Dead, which I have ranked on the "Bronze Tier" at 5 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was around December 2021-May 2022.
So this one is, uh, very complicated…
I really should like this one more, and I want to like it! It has actual impactful choices with the Hard Choice system and the structure building! This is the type of shit that should put a story in my Diamond Tier! 
Unfortunately, while it did have choices that affect the storyline, the story as a whole was pretty lacking in enjoyability. 
After the first three chapters, following the death of MC’s sister, the story just kind of… fell off. It just dragged on when they weren’t fighting zombies. I know action/thriller/horror stories shouldn’t be nothing but intense gory fight scenes or whatever, but I literally could not have been more bored when they were recruiting new colony members. They didn’t do a lot to make it interesting other than seeing all the different kinds of colonies and new breeds of zombies. 
And why the hell is this book so safe with the main cast?? Like, there is literally no sense of danger, no potential consequences for any of them. I mean at the very most, Eli can get shot and Shannon can get PTSD, but that’s about it. There aren’t any consequences to any of the other characters for having low stats, and the plot armor for these characters is insanely high. 
I know not every horror story has to have all the characters die or get harmed in order to have impact, but it just doesn’t have that same feeling of dread and danger like something like the It Lives series had. A few side characters like Cassidy and Mack will die, but they never gave us a lot of (if any) reason to care about them like ILS did with its non-LI characters like Lily, Dan, Noah, ILB MC’s grandpa, etc. 
And don’t even get me started on the ending. There were zero stakes in that final fight! And the memorial scene was just awful. Why is MC’s sister the only one that gets honored? Then again, everyone else that died were all such forgettable non-characters that they make HSS:CA’s side characters seem relevant and fleshed out. No wonder the book didn’t remember to include them in the memorial.
And the real kicker? Like I said, this is the kind of book I should be putting on Diamond Tier. Like, with books like FCL, Surrender, TBB… we do anticipate better from them, we do mourn the wasted potential of them, but we at least kind of expect them to end up being trashy, or unremarkable at the very least. 
WTD, on the other hand, is something I think we all expected to be amazing. And credit where credit is due, it does have a lot of aspects that make it respectable, not to mention a breath of fresh air as we were entering into an era of mostly single-LI choiceless stories. The hard choice system, 5 non-customizable LIs, exploring the action/zombie horror genre. But I just feel like it could have done more. 
Maybe one day, I’ll give this book a second chance.
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Trying to find a job as an autistic person 😮‍💨
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I find it interesting that PB put out that survey about what players want to see after the news of a load of people leaving the company. Makes me think they're trying to get themselves in a new place and perhaps actually take in the feedback from their fanbase.
I don’t know how much of the feedback they’ll incorporate (like the part where you could type in your suggestions—they’ve included that many times in the past and I’m not sure they’re ever listened to it), but I do think that they are really looking into revamping the way the app is used, so the survey was to sort of test our amenability to it.
There have been questions in past surveys that have been slightly hinting at substantial changes, but now they’re straight up asking about major stuff like universal MCs outright, so I think it’s an eventuality that we’ll be seeing some real changes to the app, and I don’t know how the timing of the staff reductions plays into it, but it sure is interesting to note.
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Cadybear's Reviews- Witness
Welcome to the twenty-fourth official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about Witness, 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 around May 2021.
Hahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahhhahahahahahhahahahhahhahahhaahahhahahahahahhaahahahahahahhahaaaahahhahahahahahahahhahahahhahahahahhhahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahaha what the fuck were you guys smoking ahahahahahahahahhahahaah
Looking back on it though, this one probably… isn’t the worst. It’s certainly generic and aggravating, but there isn’t really anything about it that is outright offensive. I mean, maybe by the Choices standards of the year it came out, it certainly would be trash tier. But as of late, we’ve gotten some *really* bad stuff that gives this one a run for its money. 
A lot of people tend to deem MC as whiny, spoiled, obnoxious, and a jerk to Cassian. But a few others have pointed out that a lot of MC’s behaviors make sense considering she’s just been through a deeply traumatic event (y’know, witnessing a murder) and so it’s natural for her to be a bit messy and irrational and unpredictable, especially when she’s thrown into a lot of less-than-desirable situations. I mean, after suddenly watching a murder take place right in front of you, who wouldn’t be terrified.
Which is a valid point, but also frustrating since we still have zero agency with this character. We don’t really get much say in how our MC responds to or deals with this trauma, and it would be nice to have options because there are different ways people can respond to trauma. But of course we don’t get that, because writing different possible versions for a MC requires actual effort. 
To add insult to injury, pretty much all the options for MC to behave more rationally (as well as this pre-set childhood backstory about how everything her parents did was for status) are paywalled. Choices certainly isn’t immune to highway robbery and paywalling ridiculous things, even in their best works, but for God’s sake, they make us pay diamonds to even eat anything for breakfast or dodge a taser gun! 
Also, the trope of having a MC being protected by a super muscular bodyguard LI is… so fucking done to me. Especially since this app is generally aimed at straight/wlm audiences. I don’t mind if other people like it, obviously, but I’d like to see it switched up for a change. At least let us have a male MC option for this– seriously, this story is very pointlessly genderlocked (Then again, we’d have one side of the fandom complaining about “taking away one of the few games with female locked playable characters” and another side of the fandom complaining about how the MC is “female coded” because they get protected and rescued by a bodyguard, but those are their problems tbh). 
Okay, so why don’t I consider this one one of the worst? Well, even considering the many, many problems people have justifiably brought up about this– the stiff MC, the ridiculous diamond-walling, the formulaic romance dynamic– while those are all real problems with the story, I don’t any of them are outright offensive. Especially considering a lot of the newer books we’ve been getting like Surrender, FCL, and TBB, which seem to give straight up toxic relationships and behaviors a mere slap on the wrist. 
MC and Cassian’s relationship isn’t something I would call a healthy relationship, but I wouldn’t call it toxic either. So between that and the relationships of the aforementioned books, it’s like choosing between prune juice and bleach. Which is pretty much the difference between Rotting Flesh Tier and PooPoo Tier– the former is the equivalent to prune juice while the latter is the equivalent to bleach. 
And, hey, this one is at least a fun kind of bad. People have memed on this one to hell and back for the ridiculous stuff, such as how eating breakfast is paywalled and “Say I don’t like breakfast” is the free option. It at least gave us some stupid stuff to laugh at that will be remembered in Choices history. 
So overall, it’s not quite the worst. But at best it doesn’t really do anything new or special and is just fun to laugh at, and at worst it’s annoying as all fuck.
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Cadybear's Reviews- It Lives Beneath
Welcome to the fourteenth official Cadybear's Reviews post! Today I'll be talking about It Lives Beneath, which I have ranked on the "Diamond Tier" at 10 stars out of a possible 10.
Like with its predecessor, there’s not much to say on it that hasn’t already been said by everyone else. It’s amazing all the way through. 
Funny how we get ILITW right after OG HSS, and then ILB right after HSS:CA. Love to see the first two MC-switch stories be released next to each other, just as their predecessors were. 
Unlike HSS:CA though, this one was strongly written and actually relevant to its previous iterations. Not to mention, it actually had a meaningful reason to have only minimal usage of its previous installment’s characters when switching MCs– being that it takes place in a completely different locational setting from Westchester and Westchester High. There’s even one recurring returning character that’s actually heavily relevant to the story, and even outside of the returning character, the smaller cameos of the past characters are actually kind of meaningful to the story. 
Bringing back Tom to be a love interest for the new MC was especially a smart move, as it helps solidify the connection between the two books and we get to expand on his character a bit more. Not to mention he’s an amazing love interest too. Like, that part in their lake day premium scene where MC can win a giant stuffed teddy in the carnival game and Tom gets upset when he didn’t win one because he wanted to put a giant teddy in his passenger seat so he could go into the carpool lane??? And then you can have MC give him the teddy???? Yeah, I’m obsessed. 
But even outside of the characters and cast utilization, Beneath as a whole holds up really well to Woods. The nerve scores come back of course, because it wouldn’t be It Lives without nerve scores. And not only that, but they vastly improved it from ILITW’s nerve score system too. 
In Woods, the only real consequences of low nerve are the fates of the characters in one chapter. There are a couple of nerve checks midway through the book, where the characters will talk about how they’re currently feeling. But you don’t see any real consequences and hardcore effects until Chapter 15. 
Beneath, on the other hand, had a nerve score system that was much more complex and fleshed out. Not only does it account for a group nerve score, which affects if anyone even dies at all, but there’s also a variety of potential consequences spread out through the chapters rather than all the fates concentrated into one chapter. Stuff like whether or not Parker will shoot Kelley and then leave the group, whether or not Danni would sell out to Astrid’s temptations, whether or not Tom would save MC from getting their finger bitten off, whether or not Imogen could stop her mom from taking her Power, all take place at certain moments throughout the later chapters and really emphasize the sense of danger our characters are in. 
And they remember these other outcomes too later on. Whether or not Imogen will be able to keep her power, affects whether she’ll be able to recruit zombified Diavolos or whether MC will remember the incantation to take someone’s Power (they’ll have a bit of trouble with it if Imogen’s able to keep her powers, because she cut off her mom in the middle of the incantation!). 
It’s this level of attention to detail that, while it’s easy to say OG HSS > HSS:CA, I’m having a harder time deciding which of the two It Lives books is better. I personally preferred Woods because I found the MC more flexible, their necessary background better established, and the characters much more compelling. But in terms of how fleshed out the lore and nerve score system is, it pales in comparison to Beneath, without a doubt. I plan to go a lot more in-depth about this in a separate “ILITW vs ILB” post. 
Overall, ILB does a great job with its story and with continuing the franchise. While I love that we got fans to make the third part of the anthology (and said third part does a lot of things that not even PB’s best works could even think of doing), PB should still be ashamed of themselves for canceling the sequel to this.
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Proving a point to my boyfriend.
PLEASE REBLOG if you (male or female) believe it is perfectly okay and natural for a guy of any age to cry
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choices is going so downhill it’s genuinely upsetting. AI bookcovers, uncanny new sprites and skin tones, every single fucking new book is unrelenting smut and I AM SO TIRED pixelberry do better
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looks like he is leaving pb after all. i'm looking forward to whatever he works on next, let's make sure to support it!!
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I may be a lunatic but either PB is either bankrupt with ideas OR don't know what to do with Choices app and its precious VIP
They’ve AI’ed themselves into a corner 😮‍💨 I’m just waiting for a repeat of the Willy Wonka AI thing in Glasgow but with Choices.
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Okay no but a good indicator of a Choices lineup’s quality is how memeable it is. Even with The Nanny Affair and Surrender, it was at a point where I could make memes out of them. But now the lineup is just really, really stale. Like, it’s not bad, it’s just boring, and I can’t really meme it when it’s boring.
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I don’t think I’ve ever been this bored with a lineup in the entire existence of the app (2016).
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So we spent years complaining about PB reusing MC's and they replied by making new ugly ones.
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