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cadybear420 · 2 months

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Cadybear's Choices Reviews: The Masterlist + Ranking of Choices stories (Note: List is subject to frequent updates)

(Keep in mind, I'm initially posting this as purely the tierlist without links. As I start posting my reviews, I'll begin to fill it out with the links to the reviews.)

I've been compiling a Google Doc of reviews for all the Choices stories I've played and I figured, it's about time I started sharing them. So here's where I'm going to be collecting them all.

This collection of links to my reviews will be organized in a tierlist-style format. This tierlist is subject to changes.

Notes:

All reviews are subject to updated versions, ie. re-reviews, and its place in the tierlist may change as well. If I have to make a re-review for a story, it will get its own brand-new post. However, all reviews of a story will be included in the list.

Stories that are part of an anthology or are spinoffs will get separate posts. For example, ILB gets its own separate post from ILITW, HSS:CA gets its own separate review from OG HSS, Unbridled gets its own separate review from Untameable, Rivals with Benefits gets its own separate review from Roommates with Benefits. But I will still compare them to their respective predecessors in their reviews.

Stories that change their titles midway through the series but retain the storyline of the same MC will not be getting separate reviews for each title change. TRR and TRH will be reviewed together, all of TFS will be reviewed together. But this is subject to exceptions (eg. I might end up separating TRR and TRH reviews from each other)

Purple titles are stories I have played, and am able to create a substantial review for (generally due to having last played them recently).

Pink titles are stories I'm in the middle of playing or replaying. Keep in mind that some of these playthroughs may be on hiatus.

Uncolored titles are stories that I have played, but the review for it may not be very substantial or informed, as I played them a couple of years before I started collecting all my reviews together. I'm still making some form of review for it anyways because I would like to provide some context to the ranking I gave it. That, and, if I do get to playing it and re-reviewing it, I can have two reviews side-by-side to see how my opinions may or may not have changed.

Titles with a 🍇 next to them are reviews that are very long and detailed and "juicy". Like, the ones that are lengthier and/or more highly opinionated than others.

Diamond Tier: Choices’ Bests, 10 stars, YAAAAASSSS!

The books and series that clearly had the most effort and heart put into them. They’re not all perfect obviously, but they do feel like actual choice-making interactive stories, and they’re easily the most enjoyable of the bunch. These are the stories that other Choices stories should take notes from.

*Blades of Light and Shadow- Book 1 (have yet to start Book 2, and Book 3 is on its way)

Endless Summer

High School Story (OG Trilogy) 🍇

It Lives in the Woods

It Lives Beneath

The Heist: Monaco

Platinum Tier: Exceptional Quality, 9 stars, YES!

They probably didn’t have quite as much meaningful player interaction put into them and/or weren’t quite as enjoyable as any of the Diamond Tier books. But they’re still really high quality and very respectable, and even possible contenders for being moved up to Diamond Tier after I give them a replay.

A Courtesan of Rome

BloodBound

Mother of the Year

Murder at Homecoming 🍇

Perfect Match

The Crown and the Flame

*The Royal Romance- Book 1 (have yet to play the rest)

Gold Tier: Memorably Fun, 8 stars, WOOO!

They’re maybe not really the best quality stories, but they were fun to play and had elements that kind of gave them their own unique charm. Maybe it’s just an absolute wild ride of a story, or maybe it’s a guilty pleasure story. They’re memorable, maybe even iconic, and certainly worth replaying.

Across the Void

America's Most Eligible

Baby Bump 🍇

Bachelorette Party

*Dirty Little Secrets (currently playing but it's on a good track so far)

Hero

LoveHacks

The Haunting of Braidwood Manor

The Phantom Agent

Silver Tier: Enjoyable. 7 stars, Yay!

The “vanilla is still a flavor” of the app. The stories that were mostly simple and straight-forward and didn’t greatly wow me or stick with me, but were still at least fun to play and could be worth a replay. Pretty good as “cozy” stories.

*Crimes of Passion- Book 1 (have yet to play Book 2, and Book 3 is on its way)

The Freshman Series- Special Date Side Stories (have yet to play the actual main series and the holiday side stories)

Home for the Holidays

*High School Story: Class Act (if you pretend it’s not a HSS spinoff; see Bronze Tier for full review)

*Immortal Desires- Book 1 (Book 2 is on its way)

*Open Heart- Book 1 (have yet to play the rest)

Shipwrecked

The Cursed Heart- Book 1 (have yet to start Book 2)

The Freshman Series- Special Date Side Stories (have yet to play the actual main series and the holiday side stories)

The Princess Swap

With Every Heartbeat

Copper Tier: Decent, Average. 6 stars. Eh.

The “just okay” stories. Far from terrible, but not much about them that really stood out to me. Not much interest in replaying them, unless maybe I need something completely mindless to play or want to give them a second chance.

Distant Shores

Nightbound

Bronze Tier: Unsure, Mixed Feelings, It’s Complicated. 5 stars. Ehhhhh.

The stories that are mixed bags. They aren’t really terrible, as there are some things they did right, but there’s also… so much that they did wrong. A lot of these could probably use a replay for the sake of giving it a second chance and forming a more solid opinion on it.

High School Story: Class Act 🍇

Laws of Attraction

Rules of Engagement 🍇

**The Nanny Affair- Book 1 (see Stone Tier for full series review)

Wake the Dead

Wolf Bride

Stone Tier: Truly Mid, Lacking in Substance. 4 stars, Meh.

I don’t really dislike them, but there’s next to nothing they give to us. They’re just so empty and flavorless. There’s “vanilla is still a flavor”, and then there’s having no flavor at all, and these books just have little to no flavor.

Ms. Match

Roommates with Benefits

Slow Burn

**The Nanny Affair- Book 2 (and the sum whole of the trilogy tbh 🍇

Wood Tier: Boring. 3 stars. Bleh.

The absolute snorefests of the app. Not only did they give nothing, but they were terrible at holding my interest and attention. They’re so poorly paced that even if they did have something of value, I completely missed it because I was either completely zoning out and/or I felt actual mental distress trying to follow the story. At least with the Stone Tier books, I could actually pay attention to the story without feeling like my brains were going to have a nuclear meltdown.

A Very Scandalous Proposal

Ride or Die 🍇

**Sunkissed (played 5 chapters before quitting cause it was so boring)

Rotting Flesh Tier: Annoying. 2 stars. Uuuuggghhhh.

The stories that are legitimately painful to play through. Just downright frustrating and groan-worthy. They aren’t quite the worst, but they only do very little right. And it’s even more tragic because these premises maybe could have been done right. There are ideas for decent stories here, but they’re completely neglected.

My Two First Loves 🍇

**The Nanny Affair- Book 3 (see Stone Tier for full series review)

Witness

PooPoo Tier: Literally the Worst. 1 star. AAAARRRRRGGGHHH.

The absolute dogshit stories. The biggest doodoofarts of the entire app. The complete bottom of the barrel. The stories that had me actually verbally raging and close to throwing my phone into the nearest wall. Everything about each of these is doomed from the beginning. Anything that could have been done right or even decently is done terribly. Rotting Flesh tier is merely the equivalent to prune juice; this tier however is the equivalent to bleach.

Surrender 🍇

Untameable 🍇

First Comes Love 🍇

The Billionaire's Baby 🍇

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play #cadybear's choices reviews #cadybear's rankings

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cadybear420 · 7 months

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My ranking of Choices MCs.

Feel free to ask questions lol. I haven't included for Guinevere and any following books because they're not included in this template, and most of those books I've either not yet played or I haven't yet formed a full opinion on them (FCL MC is definitely going into trash tier tho)

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#i'm not tagging all of these books or mcs #choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play #choices stories we play fandom #pixelberry choices #pixelberry studios #pixelberry #pb choices #choices mcs #cadybear's rankings #cadybear's tierlists

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cadybear420 · 5 months

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My Proper Tierlist Ranking of Choices Books (as of late November 2023).

I'm kinda tired of using the tiermaker templates because they're not always up to date lol. So instead I'm just doing it as a basic ass text post. Keep in mind that all of these placements are subject to change.

Feel free to ask me about any of my placements because I love to talk about my Choices opinions!

Diamond Tier: Choices’ Bests. 10 stars. YAAAAASSSS!

The books and series that clearly had the most effort and heart put into them. They’re not all perfect obviously, but they do feel like actual interactive stories, and they’re easily the most enjoyable of the bunch.

OG High School Story

Endless Summer

It Lives Series

A Courtesan of Rome

The Heist: Monaco

Blades of Light and Shadow

Platinum Tier: Exceptional Quality. 9 stars. YES!

The Crown and the Flame

The Royal Romance- Book 1 (have yet to play the rest)

Perfect Match

BloodBound

Mother of the Year

Murder at Homecoming

Gold Tier: Memorably Fun. 8 stars. WOOO!

They’re maybe not really the best quality stories, but they were fun to play and had elements that stood out to me. Maybe it was just an absolute wild ride of a story, or maybe it’s a guilty pleasure story. They’re memorable and certainly worth replaying.

LoveHacks

The Haunting of Braidwood Manor

Hero

America’s Most Eligible

Across the Void

Bachelorette Party

The Phantom Agent

Silver Tier: Enjoyable. 7 stars. Yay!

The “vanilla is still a flavor” of the app. The stories that were mostly simple and straight-forward and didn’t greatly wow me, but were still at least fun to play and could be worth a replay. Pretty good as “cozy” stories.

The Freshman Series- Special Date Side Stories (have yet to play the actual main series and the holiday side stories)

Home for the Holidays

High School Story: Class Act (if you pretend it’s not a HSS spinoff)

Open Heart- Book 1 (have yet to play the rest)

Baby Bump- Book 1 (have yet to play the rest)

With Every Heartbeat

Shipwrecked

Crimes of Passion- Book 1 (have yet to play Book 2, and Book 3 is on its way)

The Princess Swap

The Cursed Heart

Immortal Desires

Copper Tier: Decent, Average. 6 stars. Eh.

The “just okay” stories. Far from terrible, but not much about them that really stood out to me. Not much interest in replaying them, unless maybe I need something completely mindless to play.

Nightbound

Distant Shores

Bronze Tier: Unsure, Mixed Feelings, It’s Complicated. 5 stars. Ehhhhh.

I’m mixed on these stories. They aren’t really terrible as there are some things they did right, but there’s also so much that they did wrong. A lot of these could also use a replay for the sake of giving it a second chance.

Rules of Engagement

High School Story: Class Act

The Nanny Affair- Book 1

Laws of Attraction

Wolf Bride

Wake the Dead

Stone Tier: Truly Mid, Lacking in Substance. 4 stars, Meh.

I don’t quite dislike them, but there’s nothing they give to us. They’re just so empty. There’s “vanilla is still a flavor” and then there’s having no flavor at all, and these books just have little to no flavor.

Ms. Match

Slow Burn

The Nanny Affair- Book 2 (and the sum whole of the trilogy tbh)

Roommates With Benefits

Wood Tier: Boring. 3 stars. Bleh.

Ride or Die

A Very Scandalous Proposal

Rotting Flesh Tier: Annoying. 2 stars. Uuuuggghhhh.

The stories that are legitimately painful to play through. Just downright frustrating and groan-worthy. They aren’t quite the worst, but they only do very little right. And it’s even more tragic because these premises could have been done right. There are ideas for decent stories here, but they’re completely neglected.

Witness

My Two First Loves

The Nanny Affair- Book 3

PooPoo Tier: Literally the Worst. 1 star. AAAARRRRRGGGHHH.

Surrender

Untameable

First Comes Love

Air Tier: Opinions and Rankings Pending.

Quite simply, the ones I can’t properly judge yet due to not having completed or played

Haven’t even started playing yet: MW, TFS, RCD, VOS, D&D, BSC, TE, PTR, WT, PT, STD, TRM, HC, RT, FA, GNV, TDA, KND

Currently Playing that I haven’t yet completed: GG, KOD, OH trilogy, BaBu series

Currently Playing that’s still releasing to all: TBB, DLS

Currently Replaying: OH 1, AME 1, TH:M

Stories I started playing but then dropped mid-book prior to getting my new phone and have yet to pick up again: SK, QB 1, WT, TUH

Still VIP Only: Alpha, SOD, TCH 2

Coming Soon: Unbridled (UT 2), Guarded, Hot Shot, ID 2, A Taste of Royalty, Unnamed GOC Firefighter Book, The Most Dangerous Game, RWB 2, COP 3

#i'm not tagging all of these books #choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play #choices stories we play fandom #cadybear's rankings #cadybear's choices books rankings

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cadybear420 · 6 months

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My ranking of Choices Books.

Feel free to ask questions about my placements and opinions here lol. FCL and onwards are not in my list because they weren't included in the template (and I'm still taking time to read or properly form opinions about those books anyways).

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#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play #choices stories we play fandom #i'm not tagging all of these books #cadybear's rankings

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cadybear420 · 7 months

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My ranking of Choices SERIES finales.

Guinevere and onwards are not included because the template doesn't have them (and I haven't completed any of those books anyways). Used Surrender 1 as a placeholder for the Surrender 2 finale.

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#i'm not tagging all of these books #choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play #choices stories we play fandom #pb choices #pb #pixelberry choices #pixelberry studios #pixelberry #cadybear's rankings

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cadybear420 · 1 year

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My Top 3 Worst Choices LIs (this list is subject to later change or expansion)

🏅Honorable Mentions:

Nick from HFTH: He got on my nerves for the first part of the book, but at least he became more tolerable later.

Everett/Yvette from SB: Copy-paste emotionally closed off LI with copy-paste backstory of being betrayed by a shitty ex. But I didn't completely hate them or find them terrible.

Julian/Julia from SB: I liked them but they clearly just existed to be a "backup" for just in case we don't like Everett/Yvette. You could have removed them from the story and nothing would change.

Will from TCATF: I liked him as a character, but him being into Dom was completely out of nowhere and they clearly only added it in to have a token mlm romance in the trilogy.

Rory from HSS:CA: I liked them well enough, but they felt very lackluster as a character compared to Ajay and Skye, and to OG HSS's LIs. The other LIs in these trilogies all have some form of personal growth arc, but Rory just seemed to fall short of that. There was also really no need for the entirety of Book 1's conflict to revolve around MC's forced crush on Rory.

Logan from ROD: Of all the LIs they could have made the "main LI", why him? Why not Colt? Cause I remember a hell of a lot more about Colt's relevance to the Mercy Park Crew than I do that of Logan's. But to be fair it has been a long time since I last played.

🥉Third Place:

Reagan from Surrender.

Reagan acting predatory to MC, texting her a photo of a riding crop and "Have you been a good girl or do I need to punish you" within 10 minutes after first meeting her sours the story and the character.

That plus the fact that MC suddenly wanting to be a sub is completely out of nowhere (and also hypocritical on behalf of the writers who claim it wouldn't make sense for MC to want to dom right away), making a scene that can be read as Reagan coercing MC into BDSM and being a sub. Which just goes against the whole point of MC's story revolving around escaping a toxic spouse.

🥈Second Place:

Kit from Untameable.

I'm in the unpopular opinion in that I don't find most customizable LIs to be completely devoid of personality. But Kit is the literal textbook definition of "personality devoid customizable LI". The childhood backstory for MC, Kit, and Austin is incredibly weak and I have no idea why MC would be so into Kit.

And the story does a terrible job of trying to convince me that Kit is a player too. There are like two scenes ever where Kit gets swarmed by gals/guys but from what I can tell, Kit doesn't really care much about hooking up with any of them. People call the story wlm-coded but honestly the "high stakes" and "forbidden romance" is just so forced, it doesn't even matter how gender-coded the story is cause it will be nonsensical even if you play as wlm.

🥇First Place:

Bastien from Wolf Bride.

It's not so much for possessiveness and kidnapper behavior and him being all "herp derp MC and I are magically bonded we must do breeding". I mean, don't get me wrong, I fucking hate seeing these kinds of LIs pushed on us so much, but it's kinda what I expected from this kind of book (I mean, look at that cover). So I could just give it an eyeroll and a "Ugh this is such a cliche Twilight/romance YA novel trope", and not dwell on it so much.

But what really made me hate him was accusing Morgan of betraying the pack to help Sayre, despite being witness to Morgan calling out Sayre's abuse of her. And they try to excuse it with "Oh this is just how wolves get when they're both fighting over the same mate" ok sure, Bastien's still an asshole tho. And sure Morgan did shitty stuff too but at least it was addressed and she got a redemption/atonement.

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play #choices stories we play fandom #pixelberry choices #pixelberry #pixelberry studios #choices app #cadybear's rankings #not even gonna bother tagging all the books

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cadybear420 · 6 months

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My Current Choices Books Ranking as of November 2023

Quick amendment: I actually have played Nightbound, putting it in "haven't played yet" was purely an accident that I didn't notice until now. I'd personally rank it in "Decent" tier.

Sooo yeah, this time I actually bothered to include the books that weren't included in the template, even though the way I put them in was kinda crappy lol.

Anyways, feel free to ask questions about my placements because I like discussing this kind of stuff. Also keep in mind that many of these placements are subject to change as it's been a while since I last played them.

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play #choices stories we play fandom #cadybear's rankings #I'm not tagging all of these books

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cadybear420 · 1 month

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Cadybear's Reviews- Murder at Homecoming

Welcome to the thirty-seventh official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about Murder at Homecoming, which I have ranked on the "Platinum Tier" at 9 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was during September-December 2022.

This is definitely one of the better, if not the best release, of 2022, and it’s easily among my personal faves.

A MC who is proactive and gets shit done, multiple LIs, highly compelling story. How can I not love that? All three of the LIs are amazing characters– and Tyler especially is just precious. I think he’s the first love interest I have ever adored nearly as much as I’ve adored Aiden. I miss when we had male LIs that are just so babygirl.

The incorporation of mature topics and queer themes was especially excellent. MTFL, take notes! Because THIS is how you write a teen story that talks about queer sexuality and mature behaviors. Besides maybe BiBound I mean BloodBound, this is probably the first book in Choices where each LI has some degree of confirmed sexuality outside of their LI option status for the MC.

One thing that’s especially notable is how Tyler will talk about how he used to think he was straight if you romance him as a male or enby MC. I normally don’t mind much when LIs in GOC stories are made with the “playersexual” style of writing, but these sort of little changes are a good show of effort and give Tyler more character.

But of course, it’s not without a handful of problems.

Like COP (1), the story is incredibly linear and none of the clues or choices really affect your story. Sure, they give you a bit of extra background, but that’s about it.

The only choices that really have any impact are the stuff related to the queer discussions, Tyler’s romance route, and how the options for how your MC can talk about their queer experience can change based on your MC’s gender and romance choices. Which is still highly praiseworthy, don’t get me wrong, but I’d have loved to see some variation in the other elements of the book too.

And as much as I did enjoy this MC and do consider them one of the more refreshing ones, they were also a bit too rigid and pre-set for me at times. I get that some MCs will need to have pre-set details about them, and to some degree that does apply to this MC, but it was a bit much at times. Like, there was especially no need to give them a default first AND last name. I do like the aspect of MC preferring to go by their middle name, but we still could have been allowed to change their first and last names too, to be honest.

I found it really hard to feel for the loss of Perdita for this reason; the traumatic event backstory didn’t feel as well established, compared to that of ILITW and ACOR MCs. Though to be fair, I do remember there being a handful of premium scenes to see a memory with Perdita, and I do remember skipping all but two of them.

But even then, I never felt she had quite as much importance as the writers clearly wanted her to have? Outside of being a motivator for MC to solve Gabbie’s case and allowing MC to connect with Donovan better. Maybe my opinion on this might change after I give it a replay, though.

That being said, I’m actually fine with the story not telling us what really happened to Perdita, as much as I’d have loved a continuation for this book. MC not knowing what happened to Perdita is what motivated them to solve Gabbie’s case, and in that regard, the two cases kind of juxtapose one another. Whereas MC is able to get closure for Gabbie’s case, they don’t do that for Perdita’s case.

That makes the ending a little more nuanced in my opinion. Sometimes, we don’t always get closure for these kinds of things. While I’m still mixed on how well the story integrated Perdita, this message was handled decently and didn’t feel like it was in bad spirit.

So if there were a continuation for this story, I wouldn’t mind it being centered around MC finding Perdita, motivated to work on that case more actively after their success with Gabbie’s case. But rather than having them solve the case, it can mostly center around them struggling between whether they should keep up that search, or leave it as a cold case and move on.

Overall, definitely a higher-tier and very respectable story that definitely deserves a replay.

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play #cadybear's reviews #murder at homecoming choices #choices murder at homecoming #murder at homecoming spoilers #mah #choices mah

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cadybear420 · 1 month

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Cadybear's Reviews Brief Thoughts- Laws of Attraction

Welcome to the thirty-first official Cadybear's Reviews Brief Thoughts! Today I'll be talking about Laws of Attracton, which I have ranked on the "Bronze Tier" at 5 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was during September-December 2022 (and I finished it around July 2023).

Man, I have very mixed feelings on this series.

I really wanted to like this one. But the first time I played Book 1, it actually bored the hell out of me. I could not follow the story, it felt like they were jumping from case to case far too quickly. And all the lawyer jargon made me tune the fuck out. Gabe and Aislinn were nice LIs tho, and I love all the electricity memes that people made of Gabe.

The second time I played Book 1, I was slightly better at keeping up with the plot? But a lot of the earlier problems still held true. There was always a new case every chapter, only a few of which I felt they actually completed.

Book 2 did start to take things in a slightly more interesting route with MC and friends starting their own law firm. The plot felt a lot more grounded and better-paced here, though it was still hard to follow the lawyer jargon.

And holy fuck that finale was awful. I personally consider HSS:CA and LOA to have the worst series finales of all of Choices. Utterly inconclusive bullcrap.

That all being said, I’d really like to give this series a second chance. I do like we have a flexible, proactive, and headstrong MC, where you can build up what kind of persona and motivations they have as a lawyer. Any story where the MC’s character is versatile like that and you have choices that matter always score major points with me.

Also, anyone else originally thought this title was for a physics lab romance story? And… anyone else still think it should be that? And a better name for a lawyer romance story would be “Courting”?

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play #laws of attraction #choices laws of attraction #loa #choices loa #cadybear's brief thoughts

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cadybear420 · 1 month

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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 stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play #choices mtfl #mtfl #my two first loves #choices my two first loves

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Cadybear's Reviews- Surrender

Ohhh yeah, bitches. It's time for a JUICY review. My first review of a PooPoo Tier book. Just a heads up, this one is gonna get VERY salty.

Welcome to the thirty-fourth official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about Surrender, which I have ranked on the "PooPoo Tier" at 1 star out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was around February-June 2022 (for the first book) and October 2023 (for the second book).

Holy crap, this series is awful. Like, actually the worst of the whole app, in my opinion.

It shot itself in the foot from the very start– you can’t have MC be trying to escape a toxic marriage, but have her new endgame love interest be just as bad if not worse than the ex spouse. Reagan literally talks to her as if she’s already their sub from day fucking one. And even worse, MC wants to be Reagan’s sub barely even a few chapters later, so it can almost be read as if Reagan coerced her into BDSM.

And there was literally no reason to default MC to being a sub here. Okay, I guess it technically does set up the plot for Book 2 where Reagan is refusing to give up control, but saying it doesn’t make sense for the MC to not wanna dom at first is kinda bullshit. The writers say in their blog post about Surrender 1 that “It wouldn’t make sense for her to dom right away”, yet they’re okay with making her sub right away? Other than Reagan basically coercing her into the sub role, there’s nothing given about MC’s character that suggests she couldn’t have had interest in the dom role (or both, as a switch role) at first.

Truth be told, I’d have much preferred if they let MC have options to try either of the roles and let the player build up her role as sub, dom, switch, sub-leaning, dom-leaning, etc. Especially since MC is supposed to be A) new to BDSM and B) freshly divorced after seeing her toxic spouse cheat on her. So let her take the time to explore and try out what she likes. That would be far more believable for the story and a far more immersive experience for the players. I get that said options wouldn’t have allowed for the arc of Reagan learning to give up some control, but surely they still could have done something creative for a more choice-based system.

Book 2 does have us start to try a more dominant role, but it’s honestly meaningless. Because all that book does is, it doubles down on how toxic of a partner Reagan is.

Yes, I know they do give some context for Reagan having control issues with their parents’ own abusive relationship, but as someone who has been in a fairly similar situation, it’s handled horribly. Their behaviors feel like they’re treated more as just an inconvenience or a minor hiccup, rather than genuinely toxic and abusive behaviors.

Like, here’s all the shit Reagan does in Book 2. They go behind MC’s back to pull strings for her to get that job but then deliberately convinces her that she got it all on her own, constantly acts incredibly infantilizing to her, tries to enforce BDSM-style rules outside of the bedroom to the point where they straight up forbid her from doing a part of her own job, and– probably the worst of them all– literally tells MC “when a woman agrees to be my sub, she agrees to obey”. Honest to God, just that line right there was enough to put this series on my permanent Choices shitlist.

And funnily enough, the series just almost got a chance to avoid it! After that awful line, MC finally gets some self-respect and dumps Reagan over their controlling behavior, and for a few chapters she has a big girls’ getaway trip with Malorie and (optionally) Reese (funnily enough the next book to be released after Surrender 2 is Getaway Girls). And let me tell you they’re the best chapters of this series and I enjoyed it to the max. It was the only part of the book I was willing to spend diamonds on.

Now, had MC left Reagan for good– or at least had a proper talk with Reagan– then I might move this series up a view tiers. Unfortunately, it’s all downhill from there.

Reagan refuses to take accountability for MC leaving them, and then proceeds to make Anderson track MC down on her trip when they learn she might be taking a job in Seattle. Holy fuck PB, Reagan is literally just Pat Ransic 2.0. In fact, I think they’re much worse actually.

And what makes it all tragic is that the ending, in theory, could have worked. Reagan does apologize, they do talk things out, Reagan does become more willing to give up control, and we are allowed to choose if we want to be dom, sub, or switch.

It seems all well and good, except for one little problem: it doesn’t feel earned in the slightest, especially not when the two become engaged at the end of the book (the one time MC is the one who proposes to LI, and it’s in the shittiest Choices book that ever smelled like shit), barely even a chapter after their conversation. Which, by the way, only happened because Reagan tracked MC down on her getaway trip to Vegas. It’s rushed as all hell, and that’s putting it lightly.

Not only that, but even though Reagan’s behaviors are addressed (or rather, lampshaded), it’s only part of the problem. Grant and Ray’s relationship, the relationship that the writers try to parallel with Reagan and MC’s relationship and that Reagan used to justify going back to MC, was a seemingly healthy relationship where they had struggles making things work, but they weren’t toxic.

Reagan and MC’s relationship is straight up toxic from the start– again, they acted incredibly predatory towards MC on the very day they met, and their relationship has been filled with nothing but toxicity. And MC fails to realize this, even when calling out Reagan– which is why I don’t think the story really treats the full situation with enough seriousness. The story doesn’t just shoot itself in the foot– it shoots itself in both of its legs AND its free arm, so many times that it’s too late to even amputate them because it’s already died from bleeding out so goddamn much (I know that sounds pretty extreme, but you get the idea).

Also, to add acid to all of the many wounds, this series was the perfect opportunity to let us have a pegging scene. But outside of one scene in Book 2 where you can mention MC wanting to use a strap-on, we don’t seem to get that. Oh, but they’re perfectly fine with writing Reagan blowing on MC’s cooch despite that that’s a huge risk for an air embolism which is potentially lethal. (Granted someone did say MC can use anal beads on Reagan in the finale scene if you choose MC to be a dom; but I played that scene, after having chosen MC to be dom, and uh… there was no option).

You know what though, this series isn’t good enough to have pegging anyways. The only pegging Reagan deserves is a pegging in the face with a fucking hammer.

Fuck this series. What a waste of potential.

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play #surrender 2 #surrender #choices surrender #anti surrender #fuck surrender #choices sr 2 #choices sr #sr #cadybear's reviews

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Cadybear's Reviews VERY Brief Thoughts- With Every Heartbeat

Welcome to the twenty-second official Cadybear's Reviews VERY Brief Thoughts! Today I'll be talking about With Every Heartbeat, which I have ranked on the "Silver Tier" at 7 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was around April 2021.

Not much to say about this one. It was pretty straightforward, you romance someone who has cancer, and considering the book is tagged as "tragedy"... we all know how it's gonna end. It was more or less done well, though.

There wasn’t really anything particularly special about it to me other than the uniqueness of having an LI that inevitably dies, but it’s serviceable and does well what it wanted to do. And unlike with something like ROD, I can understand why people love it and get super emotional/teared up over it. I’ll admit, I was pretty shook when Dakota’s death actually happened, even knowing it was inevitably gonna happen.

Though this has to be THE most pointlessly genderlocked books of all pointlessly genderlocked books. Like, come on. COME ON. I dare the “let women have this one thing” crowd to try and justify this, cause I’m pretty damn sure women aren’t disproportionately lacking in tragic cancer patient romance stories.

So while I don’t think it’s brilliant, I can get why other people like it, and it’s certainly worth a replay.

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play #cadybear's brief thoughts #with every heartbeat #choices with every heartbeat #weh #choices weh

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Cadybear's Reviews- Baby Bump

Welcome to the twenty-first official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about Baby Bump, which I have ranked on the "Gold Tier" at 8 stars out of a possible 10.

WHY DO PEOPLE HATE THIS SERIES!? WHY!? It’s FINE!

Okay, I can maybe see why people may not like it because, let’s be real, accidental pregnancy is a very overdone trope. And apparently there were a lot of parts that were originally problematic when the story was released and had to be re-written, but I wasn’t around for that and I know next to nothing about the original lines, so I can’t say much about them. But even now, how does it get ranked as being among the worst so often? Even if you think it’s bad, it’s really not that bad.

Like… I found it decent? I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as a lot of people have said it is. And I’m saying this as a GNC cis woman who experiences major genital dysphoria and absolutely REVILES the idea of becoming pregnant. Like, I would rather die than ever experience being pregnant. And yet I still quite enjoyed this story.

I guess it kind of helps that the book is very clearly a pregnancy book from the beginning, so I kind of went in knowing what to expect and thus not self-inserting as the MC at all. Unlike something like TRH, which is a continuation that suddenly introduces a “MC gets pregnant” plot to a non-pregnancy series… but that’s a subject for a different day.

I’ll be honest though, this story has a pretty awful start. In the flashback in B1 Ch1 where MC meets Mr. Covington, they try waaaayyyyy too hard to make the player swoon at the idea of having his babies. Like, did the guy they wanted to be MC’s baby daddy HAVE to be a celebrity company salesman, who is also the keynote speaker at MC’s graduation?

And don’t even get me started on the Clint fangirls, who feel like they were written by someone who’s only ever been surrounded by the “Facebook Mom” stereotype and has never met (and probably never will meet) a real horny woman in their entire life.

Literally, the scene is just all like “OMG LOOK!!! BIG FAMOUS CELEBRITY SALESMAN!!! OMG HE HAS *GASP* ABS!!! OH WOW, A MALE LI IN CHOICES WITH ABS AND BIG MUSCLES! THAT’S SO UNIQUE AND SPECIAL AND TOTALLY NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE!!! OMG ALL THE OTHER WOMEN ARE CHANTING OVER HIS ABS AND WANT TO HAVE HIS BABIES TOO!!! DON’T *YOU* WANT TO HAVE HIS BABIES TOO!?!?!?! AREN’T YOU SOOOOOO LUCKY THAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE HAVING HIS BABIES?!?!?!?!?!?!?”. Like, how much intelligence do you think your wlm audience has PB? Really trying to pander to the “Facebook Karen Mom” stereotype here, huh?

With that in mind, I guess I can understand why people may have gotten a bad impression of the book at first, because the story for how MC got pregnant in the first place (and her conflict with Cassandra in Book 1) feels straight out of one of those weird Instagram and Facebook ads.

But besides that, it was an okay series! I found it mostly cute and wholesome. Literally everything else was fine! There were even a few moments in Book 2 that made me cry, like when MC can record a sweet message for the babies with a plush bunny she can get from the Baby Baskets.

Besides maybe Book 1 Dr. Mariana Castillo who is just way too unserious (at least she gets better in Book 2), I honestly really liked the main cast. Even though MC is technically an outsider to the town, she still gets to be very driven and gets shit done rather than being the typical doe-eyed newbie who needs to be shown the ropes. Clint is a sweetheart and does get to be more than just “har dee har muscular celebrity salesman who knocks you up aren’t you soooo lucky” that they wanted him to be in the first chapter. Mayor Dixon is a nice mix of goofy and tsundere, and the female version Myra contributed to my bi awakening. Luisa is just a queen all around. MC’s sister… initially she could sometimes be a bit of a stereotypical “OMG girly girl talk best friend to talk exclusively about LI and diamond outfits” but she does become more than that too, and I really like her subplot with Bao. Speaking of, Bao is just the most absolute precious ever (and shame on PB for making him the sister’s LI and not one for MC /jk).

The antagonist characters were… kind of a mixed bag, I will admit. They were memorable, but also kind of stupid. Like I said before, Cassandra’s storyline in Book 1 just felt petty and cheap, plus I’m tired of straw loser villain female antagonists who exist solely to compete with the MC over the LI. It never got too overbearing, but it was still stupid. Book 2 Cassandra is great though.

Then there’s Craig, who wants to destroy everything MC and friends accomplish and take over Gracetown because… potatoes. I guess he’s alright as he is actually a threat in Book 2, but the townspeople can be pretty damn meek to him which is a little weird. But he was still a strong antagonist in that book. Book 1 Craig feels a lot more like he just exists to be an annoyance for the sake of being an annoyance, though.

Jebediah is a lot more compelling as an antagonist character, and I did expect the Covington family conflict to be incredibly boring but it turned out otherwise. He’s a jerk at first, but it’s nice to see how he does genuinely try to change throughout the storyline of Book 2.

Also, props to this for being one of only three Choices series ever (the others being OG HSS and ILITW) where the collectible system has some items that aren’t diamond-walled. The baby blanket collectibles are really cute, and it’s really refreshing to have a collectible system that isn’t “the first one is free and then the rest you have to pay for”. Like HSS, there are even some pieces that are determinant on your success in certain events. Why can’t more series do their collectibles like this??? (Oh right, because it requires actual effort).

Would I say it’s a good or accurate portrayal of pregnancy? IDK, I’m not an expert. But it’s fine if you just want a lighthearted pregnancy story to chill out to.

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play #choices baby bump #baby bump #choices babu #babu #cadybear's reviews

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Cadybear's Reviews- A Courtesan of Rome

Welcome to the fifteenth official Cadybear's Reviews post! Ironic that this is the fifteenth. Unfortunately this is about 10 days late for Ides of March this year. Today I'll be talking about A Courtesan of Rome, which I have ranked on the "Platinum Tier" at 9 stars out of a possible 10. My last playthrough of this story was around November-December 2021.

I’m rather fond of this one.

This is one of the few MCs where it makes sense for them to have a lot of pre-set aspects about them, and for the record they did do a fantastic job establishing it via the flashbacks. And even then, they also manage to give us enough player agency by allowing us to choose her motives, methods, and goals. So it’s a very neat and fair balance between pre-set and flexible.

This is also one of the few pointfully genderlocked books– while male courtesans did indeed exist in Ancient Rome, they’d likely have had vastly different experiences to that of female courtesans. Chances are, the male MC version would have so many dialogue changes that it’d basically be an entirely new book. Don’t get me wrong, I’d definitely love to see a male MC version of this story, but I can understand why PB would genderlock it.

Admittedly the story can drag at times, and the “8 years ago in Gaul” flashbacks can be a bit of a trudge (granted they do set up the story well), but it is worth it. My only real problem is that according to some fans who are history experts, this story does stray a lot from historical accuracy. But I guess not every periodical story is gonna be perfectly historically accurate.

That, and also the way they handled Xanthe is just… not good. Other people have explained it better, but basically, in a general sense, Xanthe isn’t much different from MC. Both are courtesans as per being victims of human trafficking, both are forced to rely on seduction to survive and overpower men– but the story villainizes Xanthe, while MC is pushed as heroic and morally grey/complex for the exact same shit. All because… Xanthe is kind of catty towards MC?

I didn’t think much of it in either of my two playthroughs, but I’ve seen other people bring it up and looking back… it’s too major to ignore. It’s hypocritical at best, and has some very troubling (racist) implications at worst. Especially in a book that’s meant to be an empowering periodical womanhood story. So it did end up bringing the book down a tier.

We rightfully bitch about the cheap “straw loser villain woman who exists solely to have exaggeratedly bad behaviors solely to make the MC seem better” and “pitting women against each other just because they want/do the same thing” tropes all the time in Choices stories like TNA, FCL, and TBB; and while I do still rank those books much lower due to having more objective problems overall, the trope is much more unforgivable in this book given the context.

However, while the story does have some pretty major problems, it does also have a lot of good aspects going for it that did make me mostly enjoy it. But who knows, my opinion might change after a replay.

I will also say, it’s really fun to diamond mine this one for OG HSS Book 2. Getting to stab Caesar and then taking down Principal Isa right after. So I do have a bit of a soft spot for the book in that regard.

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Cadybear's Reviews- Untameable

Welcome to the thirty-fifth official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about Untameable, which I have ranked on the "PooPoo Tier" at 1 star out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was around March-September 2022.

Holy fuck this one is so bad. It’s so bland it’s so bland it’s so bland.

I think this is the first story in Choices to actively anger me. Well, actually, that would actually be OG HSS 2 because of the basketball game drama, but at least that had an excuse for happening and it didn’t taint the whole book.

Admittedly, this is a weird one to put in the Poopoo Tier along with shit like Surrender and FCL. When you get down to it, it isn’t really offensive or problematic like those two are. There isn’t any glorified toxicity or half-baked resolutions of toxic behaviors or anything like that. But it still had me shouting and ranting at my phone screen with little to no redeeming qualities… so I put it on the tier.

To start, the story isn’t even that charged with smut outside of those CGs, despite it being a “sexy” book. I mean, at least excessive smut would have made it interestingly bad or fun bad. But no, it’s just boring and frustrating bad.

Kit is easily the blandest LI I’ve ever seen. Like, textbook definition of a soulless customizable LI. The story tries to push them as a “player” but all we ever see of that is two scenes where people flock over to Kit and swoon over them. But Kit was completely unresponsive to it, so how am I supposed to buy them as a player and not just a local ranch heartthrob?

The conflict as a whole is super artificial and contrived. I’ll give the affair stories this– as contrived and melodramatic as they are, their “forbidden” attractions actually felt forbidden, by virtue of the LI (or MC in TDA’s case) already being in a relationship with someone else.

With Untameable, they try to push Kit and MC as a forbidden romance, but literally nothing about it is forbidden besides the fact that Austin will throw a baby Caillou temper tantrum once he catches Kit and MC. Like, he straight up claims their relationship affects the ranch but HOW DOES IT DO THAT. HOW. WHAT MENTAL GYMNASTICS DID YOU DO TO GET TO THAT. IN WHAT WORLD DOES THAT MAKE ANY LOGICAL SENSE.

It’s not even one of those “it’s more interesting and refreshing as non-wlm” routes like something like SW, TCH (1), ID (1), DLS, and (presumably) Alpha are, despite the “older brother wants to protect younger sibling MC from player friend LI” trope that was meant more for wlm routes. Because, again, it’s trying to force high stakes and forbidden romance where there is none.

I have no idea why this absolute doodoofart of a book got a sequel. But hey, at least it’s gonna be about a different cast of characters, with Mandy as a LI. Honestly, Mandy was probably the only major recurring character in this book that didn’t bore or annoy me despite leaning very dangerously into the “best friend who talks exclusively about diamond outfits and how you totally deserve to bone the LI” trope.

#choices stories you play #choices #choices stories we play fandom #choices game #choices stories we play #anti untameable #choices untameable #untameable #anti ut choices #anti choices ut #choices ut #anti ut #ut #cadybear's reviews

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