wasabilobstar

[wasabilobstar]

the woobification of fictional characters is such a nonissue that some people act more passionate and angry about than real life injustices but by god sometimes he would not fucking say that. she would never do that. return to the source material and start over YOU SANDPAPERED THEM

[wasabilobstar]

hi! (almost) a year ago i drew a height chart slash my interpretation of (some of) the hss characters, and now i bring my redraw of that drawing!

in order: payton, julian, autumn, blair (mc), wes, nishan and mia! some of them are still missing and i apologise but i hope you like it. i based my interpretation on the original game, the visual novel and of course on my own ideas! please zoom in to check some details because i definitely spent some time on them!!

#THE ART IS SOOOOO GOOD LETS GOOOOO #Having very normal thoughts about them #no i don’t miss them *chokes* #high school story #hss prime #autumn hss #payton hss #hss art #hss game

[wasabilobstar]

payton! i love her

#I love payton she’s really one the best character both in choices and the original hss game #sheeeeeeeeee #and Payton here is so cute 😭😭 #payton hss #hss game #high school story #hsslilly art

[wasabilobstar]

High School Story dorks doing that meme (except they have different priorities)

MCs- Akemi Yang (low-key dating Caleb), Iris Sanders (high-key dating Maria), Tony Lee (pining really really hard over Michael)

#hello tumblr this is my first post don’t kill me #THEM!!! #I’m so normal about these kids I swear #high school story #high school #hss game #pixelberry #caleb mitchell #emma hawkins #luis marino #maria flores #michael harrison #aiden zhou #cameron levi #original character #oc: tony lee #oc: iris sanders #oc: akemi yang #original characters #they’re so effing cute I’m gonna wawawawaaaaaaa #choices #pixelberry choices #playchoices #hss art

[wasabilobstar]

Rambling time again, been thinking about HSS again and how it's much better at slow-burn type romances than most modern Choices books. You have a variety of LIs, and while each of them can come off as somewhat "closed off" they do so in vastly different ways.

Emma is a shy wallflower who has bad luck with crushes and also struggles with her parents' divorce.

Maria is serious and stern and focused on her leadership work, overworked as she's striving for the top.

Aiden (my precious baby) is socially awkward, reserved, focused on his music and not making much time for else, and afraid of failure.

Michael (also my beloved) is aloof and more cautious about forming close relationships due to his experiences with being bullied in past schools, afraid of letting people down.

Caleb is more friendly and open but is dealing with being cheated on by his ex gf and betrayed by his childhood best friend (TNA take notes btw).

Like you just have this variety of characters who have different contexts for taking time to warm up to you. Sure, there are some similar characteristics (Emma and Aiden both being shy, Maria and Aiden both being overworked and afraid of failure), but their overall characterizations are fleshed out well and are different enough that I can distinguish them as different characters. And the MC is also really flexible, allowing us to interpret these romance dynamics however we see fit. That, and the series being 3 books long, really helps the relationship feel authentic and earned and naturally-developed.

Most modern Choices books- TNA, SB, Surrender even books I enjoyed like TPA, SW, and TCH- they just rely on the same formula of eccentric/flirty MC and broody emotionally-distant LI. COP switches it up a little with LI being the eccentric flirty one and MC being the broody one, I do like TPA MC being a little more suave James Bond-ish in nature, and TCH wasn't overly horny, but that's about it.

Not helping is the fact that these are almost all single LI books, you'd think PB making only one LI per book all the time would make it easier for them to have more variety in these LIs, but no.

HSS also has an advantage most modern books don’t: it had a very near and dear place to most (possibly all) of the staff’s hearts because the original app was a project many of them had worked on. Obviously they cared about it and they cared about the Choices series enough to try hard to do it justice.

The love interests in HSS are fleshed out as you said. The issue with most modern love interests is that for the most part, they’re very one-dimensional and don’t give us much motivation or desire to explore their routes and get to know them better.

And yeah, it sure doesn’t help that a lot of books these days are single love interest books. So unfortunately, if you don’t like the single love interest in a book? Tough luck, buddy. You probably won’t like the book itself either.

I do hope they’ll get better because 2022 was a very rough year.

#high school story #HSS supremacy

[wasabilobstar]

pixel school story!!

the hss main cast sprites!! it was my first time trying out pixel art, but i think it turned out pretty cute!! ^^

#omg this is so cute #high school story #hss game #pixelberry