The neat thing about Choices books is that you can always tell whenever one is someone’s passion project vs. just a Nothing Book needed to fill the release roster.
That about sums it up. And it perfectly shows why the new books are generally so superior. It's not just that PB only writes smut, but rather that PB just isn't caring as much.
Books like TCATF, OG:HSS trilogy, ILS, ES, BB, PM– they had effort and heart, and it shows! Even the older books that didn't have the best writing or effort like ROE or LH still had their own warmth to them and felt like titles the writers did care about to some degree.
Most newer books just... do not compare. Even if you do find enjoyment in some of those books (and nothing against that at all), you can still tell that PB just pumped them out to fill their release roster and to pander to the same specific audience. Sometimes you get something that does have effort/heart like MAH or at least takes a twist on the usual routine like DLS. But it's clear through ALL of the recurring patterns in newer books– single customizable LI, 17+ sexy, MC is a newbie, LI is MC's boss or higher social class, LI saves/protects MC– that they're just eating their own excrement at this point.
One of the funniest parts of Blades to me was the lore documents where the author called every race out on their bullshit.
Elves aggrandise themselves on their lost great empire, but that empire was built on the eradication of other peoples and using humans as a race of servant under-caste.
Humans are the dominant race on Morella today and are feudalistic and discriminatory to others.
Orcs say they are one with nature but the only reason they’re on the seas of Morella today is because they’re borderline climate and environmental criminals who stripped their homeland of resources and rendered it uninhabitable.
Now this right here is the kind of shit that I can't stand. My MC just said she finds this dudebro "Okay, I guess" but then Pixelberry just looks me in the eye and says: "nah gurl you think he is sexier than Sans Undertale and The Onceler combined 🤤🔥 ya just being shyyy 🙈❤"
They did it before too in the book and in basically every ""steamy"" single LI book there's this forceful instant attraction to a random lad regardless of how the player feels
Pixelberry you don't get to tell me how I feel 🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻
This is not about actual gender coding problems, ie. stuff that does not match the MC/LI's chosen gender (like pronoun errors, smut scene errors, or clothing description errors) or makes zero sense with the chosen gender of MC/LI (like Paolo saying women aren't fit for the working world while basically marrying off his daughter to a female CEO in the f!Sam route).
I'm talking SPECIFICALLY about the numerous takes such as when a m!MC is called "female coded" because he takes on more feminine personality/roles just as the f!MC does. And why it's honestly kinda problematic to call them "gender coding".
Sure, PB may have written them with f!MC in mind, and sure, it may not be typical for most guys to act more feminine or take on feminine roles (which is because most behavior differences in men and women are due to gender-based socialization rather than actual innate biological traits btw). But coding is more than just something being "obviously" written with wlm in mind. There's a huge difference between something that was written with wlm in mind but isn't nonsensical with non-wlm routes, and something that is not only clearly written with wlm in mind and makes absolutely no sense or has absolutely zero match with non-wlm routes.
Like please, tell me how small things like male MCs getting heroically saved by his female LIs, female Trystan holding an umbrella for COP male MC, TCH male MC running away from an older man who is (tw) sexually assaulting him, and ID male MC sitting in female Gabe's lap are in ANY WAY as ridiculous and unrealistic as shit like the lube-free default-bottom mlm smut scenes, the magic penis wlw smut scenes, Cas referencing "the bad girls in all the old high school movies", AME male MC getting told he can show off his "hot bod" in an outfit that looks like an off-brand Doctor Who cosplay, or Paolo basically saying "Now that Sofia is marrying a female CEO she can fulfill her purpose as a wife and mother because women are ticking bombs who are unstable in the workplace".
And this is the point where you may say "Well I just want more variety in how the books are written and options for how MC can behave because it kills my immersion when my male MC behaves like a womanized man all the time". Well, if you just want MCs that are more "masculine" or have more "masculine" traits, just say that you want more masculine traits in MCs. Cause I have some harsh news for you: wanting more variety and options in the stories and MCs isn't a non-wlm-exclusive issue.
Here's the truth: PB isn't just "writing for male LI/female MC and not caring about the non-wlm players". They're writing with incredibly gender-stereotyped dynamics of wlm in mind. To suggest that PB is actually caring about the wlm players with this writing is very laughable; the lack of variation in the writing can be just as harmful and immersion-killing for wlm players as it is for the non-wlm players.
If you play a "wlm coded" routes as the supposedly "intended" wlm route, it's usually very gender-stereotyped. And as a gender-nonconforming cis wlm myself, it makes a lot of wlm routes VERY frustrating and immersion-killing. A lot of wlm routes are like this, whether it's GOC MC/GL male LI, GL MC/GOC LI, GL MC/GL male LI, or GOC MC/GOC LI. Male LI is always protective of the female MC, male LI is always the boss/CEO/professor/higher-up/etc. while female MC is always the newbie, male LI is always saving the damsel-in-distress female MC, female MC is always sitting in male LI's lap, male LI is always carrying female MC, female MC is always doing a sexy dance to impress male LI.
There are only 2 books where a male or "male coded" LI wears sexy underwear for MC, compared to 10 books where a female or "female coded" MC wears sexy underwear for LI (doesn't help that the male sexy underwear always looks like bland crap whether it's for MC or for LI)*. There are only 2 books I know of where a female or "female coded" MC is allowed to lift up/carry her male LI, compared to... the countless books where the male or "male coded" LI lifts up/carries the MC (and just to be clear, yes, some people can have a lot of physical strength even if they don't have a lot of muscle build).
*I know that the MC lingerie options aren't really considered female-coded, probably because they occur almost exclusively in genderlocked books, but I'm still including it as an example of PB stereotyping the romances.
Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with players who do enjoy these dynamics in wlm routes. But when these patterns occur this frequently in the wlm routes, that's when it's a problem. And it really doesn't help that these are the same dynamics by which many female-audience-targeted wlm romances in YA novels– heck just mainstream wlm and mlw romances in general– have been written as for YEARS. (This very reason is why I actually consider it usually better when certain stories like TCH, SW, and ID are played as mlw versus as wlm).
And as I've said before, non-wlm aren't the only ones who can be negatively affected by this. Just because we wlm are the primary target audience of PB's game doesn't mean they truly care about us or that they're representing us well. Not all wlm/straight women like being carried by a man, dressing in lingerie for a man, doing a sexy hip-shaking dance for a man, sitting in a man's lap, etc.
So when I see people call this stuff "female coded" or "wlm coded" in non-wlm routes, it feels like it's implying that it's only a problem when it carries over to non-wlm routes. As if it's okay to write very feminine female MCs but not very feminine male MCs.
And it's honestly disheartening, because it feels like many people just don't really care about the lack of variety in options for wlm. To illustrate my point? People only ever complain about AME MC always walking down the aisle in the wedding by default regardless of gender, but no one ever complains about ROE MC always walking down the aisle in her wedding by default. People only ever complain about MC being lifted up/carried by LI all the time in books with GOC options, but never in genderlocked routes. The GOC MCs that are occasionally said to "feel more male coded" or "actually feel like they play well as a male MC" are ALWAYS the more competent and experienced ones like TH:M MC, TPA MC, and COP MC. I once saw a take that a Shipwrecked scene "actually felt like GOC" because it had options for who spoons who. Basically, any form of "feminine" traits/roles are only criticized as "unrealistic" or "killed my immersion" when it's a male/GOC MC, and any form of "masculine" traits/roles are only criticized as "unrealistic" or "killed my immersion" when it's a GOC female LI.
TLDR: Look, I'm all for more variety and options in how PB writes their MCs, LIs, and romance dynamics. But a lot of the problems that people call "gender coded" are problems that affect wlm too because of how grossly gender-stereotyped a lot of wlm routes are.
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