User blog:Лиза Бронштейн/Choices Cliché Rant

I know this doesn't sound very optimistic, but I have to say it. Almost every recent book is painfully filled with it (looking at you, PtR), so I must speak my mind before I get too mad on Pixelberry for ruining their great game.

1. General overuse of common clichés


 * Rom-com clichés - forced engagement, good bad boys, last-minute rescue, parties till dawn... oh, and another one, which becomes a standard. MC is always late for something important. A lecture, a usual day at work, anything else - if we're the MC, we're late for something. Can't we follow the time for once?


 * Too-good-to-be-true situations. You accidentally get on a luxurious cruiser, you accidentally meet superstars and princes who fall in love with you, you accidentally get into the best places in town and in the world, you travel from one festivities to another... Maybe I'm older than the majority of fanbase, but I enjoy a pinch of realism - and I often don't find one. I love fantasy stories, I loved TH:M (which also is unlikely to happen to common people) - but in those who pretend to show real life I don't see any real life! OH was like a breath of fresh air for me because - surprise! - the MC has a JOB, has real problems which are totally relatable. HSS and TF also showed us some real life (until The Senior and HSS:CA, I guess). The other books... well... How can I be sympathetic to MCs (and the MC is supposed to represent us, common readers) who relax in the best lounge night club in Las Vegas and complain about their complicated love triangles? Sorry, no way :)


 * Every genre story has a lot of clichés too, but they're often better played. The only cliché which gets into nearly every story is a friends' group who have fun. It looked fine in RoE (they're a family), it looked fine in ILITW and ILB (they're saving the city from horrors), it was explainable in HSS, TF and OH (they're neighbours and mates), TC&TF and TRR (they've come a long way to be friends and they know each other well). In other books... well... friendship is either forced (TE, D&D, BSC, BB, RoD, VoS etc.) or boring (LH, RoD, RCD, PtR etc.). Seriously, I'm getting bored of this "5-or-more-people-friends-group" cliché.

2. Main character clichés


 * Mary Sue. Yes, I know that every playable character is a Mary/Marty Sue of some sort: he/she is always likeable, everyone falls in love with him/her, he/she can make great changes... but, seriously, some characters are far beyond that. I can understand that the MC of TRR slowly becomes everyone's favourite and hope in Cordonia's hard time: she does a lot of things to actually help others. But why everyone immediately falls in love in PtR MC? For no reason other than he/she's the MC? He/she is absolutely boring, but everyone loves him/her, because... reasons? The same goes in TF, BSC, D&D (yes, people fall in love with us immediately - maybe except for Annabelle) and many other books.


 * Stereotypical MC. Always positive, American sociocultural type (energetic, adventurous, sociable and talkative), more interested in people than knowledge... such is nearly every MC in Choices (exceptions - TC&TF, ILITW and ILB, THoBM, RoD, OH... and probably that's all). I've got nothing against positive and sociable people, but I get tired of seeing them in every single character. I don't relate to these MCs, because I want to see - and to play as - different people: ambiguous, strange, curious, nerdy, creative, sarcastic, moody, cheerful... Each time I want to play as a nerd or a responsible character, the game hits me of the nose and says: "Nope! Smile! Mingle! Practice your social skills!" Grrrr. Even the dorky MC of HSS:CA, who is somewhat different, still falls into this line.

3. Hyperinclusivity

Yes, that's a problem. I get it, there are a lot of different people in the world, we do have gays, single-parent families, people with physical or psychological traumas, people of different races, and media must be inclusive... but come on. People who read this book, do you actually have a gay guy/girl in your class and your university course and your work team? Does every friend group have an African American, an Asian and a European person? Are all parents in the families either divorced or single or same-sexed? Because I have a hard time remembering a normal family in Choices books (maybe MC's family in TF... oh, wait, they nearly got divorced). I get it when our LIs are bisexual, because you may want to romance this character no matter what gender you play. I get it when characters from social minorities appear sometimes (Andy in ILITW, Elijah in OH, Cameron in HSS and Wrenn in AME). But gay people are a minority too (literally, there are few of them in real world), yet they appear like mushrooms after the rain (TF, RCD, HSS, HSS:CA, D&D, VoS, LH etc.), which is simply unrealistic.

What's even more disgusting, Pixelberry spits on history to appease the modern reader. Who cares about the pre-Victorian moral of 1816 in England? No one! You, a young woman, will openly romance another woman, she will challenge your fiancée to a duel and he will accept it! Also it's possible to have sex with several your friends, and none of then will be jealous or confused! (looking at you, D&D last chapter) It looked fine in PM, where you could have a threesome, but THIS IS 1816, ENGLAND! Either Pixelberry writers don't care about historical realism, either they forget that times were actually different from ours.

PS. What can I say? I love Choices for many of their stories. Some gave me chills, some gave me comfort, some even gave me tears of joy. And it pains me to see books like PtR which are made of clichés. I want the good books back. I know they can be written. But I'm not sure I will see them anytime soon.

Sigh.

Thanks to all who had patience to read it :) Have a nice day!