lizard

1. Layoffs, run.tv slop, reduced daily ads, no more rewards from replaying books, the shift in focus from “original” stories to romance/booktok popular genres, shortened books with only like 4-8 chapters – we can all thank the evil villain who will not be named here, as it might be considered doxing. But, cough, they are listed on the choices fandom staff page. And unfortunately, many of the things you guys blame Series for… is actually the work of a PB staff. (Other hints: not a writer, not an artist).

2. Allegedly, evil Villain is the one responsible for the mass layoffs in March. Allegedly, it’s for power-tripping reasons. Allegedly (I will use this word a lot). Evil Villain worked at Pixelberry for a while, felt like an outsider while the other PB staff got along very closely, and left years ago to create the predecessor of the shitty slop app we all know as run.tv. Not sure when they were brought back to Choices, but they allegedly wouldn’t stop name-dropping Choices while trying to shill their AI slop apps. Anyway, the current parent company acquired Choices, and Evil Villain impressed the company with their shitty AI slop and how you can create a lot of video assets in a short period of time (for more info, since they did a blog post lowkey bragging about this tool: https://blog.comfy.org/p/cause-study-how-series-entertainment). Since the AI parent company is impressed by Evil Villain’s data/proof on generating soooooo much output (because quantity over quality, am I right?), they put them in charge, and Evil Villain becomes a #Soap Opera Villain by pulling a #power move and firing 99% of the Choices staff (yes, that’s right) in March.. In March, only [insert a prime number you can count on one hand] staff members remained. Allegedly. Evil Villain fired many of those people because they were bitter that they felt like an outsider when they worked for Choices in the past. The remaining writers (up until at least one got fired right before July 4th and wrote a farewell comment on the official server this Monday, July 6th) were moved to run.tv, because run.tv was the Evil Villain’s brain child and they convinced the parent company that run.tv would be the future.

3. On, yeah, Hero: Homecoming episodes 1-10 or whatever that got released right when it dropped were “written”/produced by the Evil Villain. They got butthurt by all the negative comments (on Reddit, I’m presuming, since Evil Villain was also butthurt by the run.tv slop flair lmao), so they allegedly forced one of the remaining writers to write the rest of it.

4. It Lives Within plagiarism rumors are… Well, let’s just say… a certain Evil Villain thought the fan project folks should be flattered. 5. Anyway… yeah, Evil Villain did not plan for more books to be written. Since, you know, 99% of the staff was fired. (It’s likely the reason why Scream for Me was cut short). They really wanted to funnel Choices fans to run.tv lmao

6. Evil Villain didn’t care about the backlash (prior to Hero: Homecoming coming out). Bestie was living in delulu land and believed that “there’s always gonna be a hater,” so it was just white noise to them. Evil Villain was convinced there was gonna be an audience/silent fans who’ll embrace run.tv and AI. They didn’t give a shit about Choices fans and what the fandom wanted (yet they kept using Choices books to try and funnel the readers??? Make it make sense). Also, Evil Villain didn’t want to mention AI usage for Hero: Homecoming and the It Lives Within knockoff because “fans might not give it a chance”. Bestie, please. The parent company is an AI company. As long as money was coming in from somewhere, that was the most important thing. And surely they could somehow profit from all those AI videos on run.tv because there are a lot of them. 7. Anyway, it looks like run.tv is not doing so hot. It’s likely dying, lol (was it ever doing well to begin with?), hence the Scream for Me part 2 drop and the sudden “we’re actually going to produce more books” angle when they stayed silent for months while fans were wondering what was going to happen after the March layoffs. (No, the app isn’t going to shut down. It’s the only thing making the current parent company money. But they originally (at least around April) didn’t plan on new books past August, which they likely didn’t want to reveal and piss off the already pissed-off fans).

8. Also, the Evil Villain hate-stalks Spellfyre because they have beef (or history) with one of the founders. Lol. Allegedly. So check out Spellfyre <3 (Also check out Rogue Wombat, since it’s founded by a writer who got laid off during Evil Villain’s allegedly vindictive firing spree). 9. Allegedly, Evil Villain convinced the parent company that they have to “kill” Choices in order for run.tv to succeed. Fans would otherwise cling to the app

1. Side note: the parent company did consider making a “Choices 2.0” app because they codebase they use is indeed outdated. The vague blog statement they released isn’t wrong (https://www.pixelberrystudios.com/blog/2026/4/15/ef5sny7sjvbe68wd46qr3iowc0xf2z). The Reddit mod team is aware that Choices uses Cocos, which hasn’t been updated since November 2019. Cocos was heavily used in the 2010s, as it’s open-source and provides a cross-platform 2D engine for any individual or indie companies (or even big companies) to take a stab at making mobile apps, 2d games, etc. But again, it hasn’t been updated since 2019. And the current parent company considered migrating stories to a new app, but it’d cost too much $$$$$ and time, and they realized fans would not give up on their beloved series/books/characters, so they axed Choices 2.0. (Yeah, they’re seeking alternative apps/ventures/ideas because this app is truly using a hella outdated platform, and as the years go on, it’s gonna be harder and harder to find a person who has background knowledge in an app that hasn’t been updated in ~7 years to maintain it lol)

10. Anyway, run.tv was supposed to be the future. Choices fans should have gone there. The numerous mpreg videos (and boy, are there a lot of them) on there (at least during Hero: Homecoming’s initial release. I haven’t looked at the slop app since the day they desecrated the series) were because Evil Villain is a fan (citations needed) or they’re convinced mpreg is a very, very, very, very popular genre. Allegedly. 11. Also, Evil Villain considered deceiving fans at one point and telling them that the original writers of Hero worked on Hero: Homecoming. Allegedly.

12. Also, allegedly they’ve been watching Reddit (again, happy to hear that the run.tv slop flair pisses you off, Evil Villain lmao) because of how strong the backlash has been against Hero: Homecoming, etc, which is why the mod team has been subtly or unsubtly encouraging people to be vocal about their opinions since April lol. This is the only platform they have zero control over. It’s also the biggest fan group (63.9k members!!!). So the backlash here is the most visible (and widespread) lol. This isn’t Discord where they can threaten people with bans for expressing their dislike of AI or run.tv. The rampage made them realize they need to do whatever they can to retain Choices fans (because y’all were canceling your Vip subscriptions and deleting the app, and encouraging everyone else to do so lol)! 13. Evil Villain’s goal in May was to have the official Discord stop being so negative about AI btw, and tasked a person with like a few weeks to make it embrace run.tv. Anyway, there seems to be a new person in that position I will not name (but if you’re a member of the server, you’ll know), so god speed to them because the server has been open to the public since November and they’re now the third person to be handed that role.

14. Evil Villain is delulu. They cannot accept the blame that all of the backlash (run.tv, hero: homecoming, it lives within) is all their doing. Why is the parent company trusting them? No idea. Seniority. I guess. The idea that 10,000 sixty-second videos can easily be generated with Ai, which somehow means profit? 15. Oh! And Evil Villain the folks at the parent company truly didn’t think the anti-AI sentiment within the Choices fandom would be that strong. They really miscalculated, and you guys are really throwing a wrench in their “funnel all Choices fans to run.tv so we can kill this app and profit off of them somehow paying for their run.tv content” plan. The faster run.tv dies, the faster they’re going to scramble to find ways to keep y’all from fleeing because Choices is their only moneymaker lol. (And when the parent company acquired Choices, they actually didn’t plan to turn it into an AI slop format or push AI slop videos on the fans.. It’s really just the Cocos platform not being updated and them unable to find resources/folks who are familiar with it to keep the app running that they started looking for alternative ways to make money.) 16. Anyway, the return to the interactive fiction format is definitely them scrambling to retain Choices fans (Scream for Me getting rightfully continued, Loki getting more chapters than originally announced on an Insiders newsletter) but who knows how long that’ll go on for since, again, they fired most (all?) of their remaining Choices staff right before the 4th of July. 17. Oh, and run.tv is pretty much Evil Villain’s baby. Allegedly, LoreSpark was one of the apps they created, or at east was at the helm of, which is run.tv’s predecessor.

Yeah, I’m sure this was a lot. And very vague at times. Or maybe it wasn’t. It’s basically three months’ worth of insider tea condensed into one post. I will not name names as it’s against Reddit’s TOS.

TLDR: there’s one person to blame for the downfall of Choices, lol. The 100 ads rewards being taken from the fans? Their idea. The rewards from replays being removed? Their idea. The shift to very short books? Their idea. run.tv AI slop? Their idea. (Their baby, actually). Layoffs? Them (for petty, vindictive reasons). The current parent company pretty much is backing them up and their ideas because they once upon a time demonstrated an AI tool that shows how you can mass-produce 10,000 60-sec videos, and lol they’re scrambling to retain Choices fans now because they were truly delulu and believed readers would embrace AI videos with open arms so they could kill this app.