H@x, man. Let's Play HeartString Bugs!

Hello, lovelies! I hope this thread doesn't step on any toes, but the general consensus seemed to lean on this being acceptable, so here we are!



For those not already in the know, HeartString Bugs is a free, Canadian otome dating sim that follows your standard 'three years of high school while trying to snag a boyfriend' plot...with a twist.

The other Heartstring bugs thread in this forum does an excellent job of summarizing the characters, so I'm going to launch right in.

Since the lovely forum-goers already decided what kind of protagonist they wanted in the other thread, I'm going to honor that, and build her accordingly as a bookish academic whose regret is sucking so hard at sports. I'm a Blaze fangirl, so I'll be playing with the goal of romancing Mr. Crazypants Rockstar...BUT you can romance two guys at the same time in this game, and you really only have to choose between them at the very end if you play your cards right, so I'm open to voting on boyfriend #2.

I require a character name and a birthday to proceed!

Also, please let me know if you guys want me to do the game from the beginning, or skip a little ahead since you've already seen the very beginning.

AMERICA
In all capital letters
July 4th
... Blaaaze <3 I vote we cheat on Blaze with Dimitri, if that's possible! Yay, two-dimensional two-timing with zero consequences ahahahaha~! /horrible

It's possible to cheat on Blaze with basically anyone, since he doesn't go to your school...so he rarely runs into any of the other potential love interests. *is shot for being a horrible person*

Seconded for name and birthday.

Can we do the Chase/Lucas triangle?

Seeing as the stats are only for grades and story cycles and whatnot, I wonder if romancing everyone at the same time is a viable option... The only problem would be buying clothes for everyone, but you can obviously still raise love levels without wearing their favorite style every time...
Time to experiment.

"Romance everyone" is ALWAYS a good option.

Let's go for the pervert as well as Blaze. If we want to go crazy, we need to go all out. Romancing everyone would lead to harem end in the best case scenario, but a battle for supremacy/you getting roasted over blazing fire in reality.

Her name should be Ribs because I'm eating some. Her birthday should be April 1st because we be trollin'.

Third this. And Romance EVERYONE

I downloaded this and ohgodChaseroutewhatevenhappened. At first I was like "-fangirlin-" and then I was like "... Wait, did they do what I think they did?" then it was "Oh please tell me they didn't do what I think they did." And UnbrokenHours did, indeed, do what I thought she did, but she pulled it off tastefully and humorously, so I am okay. o3o

Go after Lucas or Hyeung or something, I have a feeling Blaze is going to take me a while to figure out and I don't want it spoiled. xD

I'm a terrible namer so I can't help you there but MAKE HER BIRTHDAY DECEMBER 26TH!!!! It's Boxing Day in Canada and Europe.

Edit: Also; Romance everyone yes?

Oh mai god, I have to know. What happened to Chase? Is it a bird? A plane? Superman?

If it's a bird we are doing his route first.

I nominate Donmai, birthday February 29th.

No, no, definitely not a bird. Not telling though, because then it'd ruin the surprise.

I'm good with this too.

How about Ozzo, May 7th?

Fair enough. Whose story did you like the most?

I second Ozzo, because of reasons.

Mmh... So far I haven't done many. Vi was slow going because it was so boring. So I've done him and Chase. Chase is a very amusing story, so I'll have to say him so far. I have a feeling Blaze is going to take the cake with his though. We'll see. Although I am rather curious about Dimitri's story, since it's bound to have something to do with

And Lucas is rather mysterious, too, which makes me want to find out what's lurking there. I'm also looking forward to finding out what the girl's ends are like.

Guys
Guys
Stop giving me a reason to stay up later, it's already three in the morning where I am
And with this, I say good night.

So we appear to be naming protaga-chan "AMERICA" in all caps, and her birthday is July 4th, based on which suggestion got the most votes.

There's apparently nowhere NEAR a consensus on which guys we should pursue other than Blaze/stats we should grind, so we will just cross that bridge when we get there. ;)

Since we never finished the intro in the other thread, would you like me to start it from scratch here?

It's been a while, but it'd be faster not to when it's all there in the old thread anyway. *is not the voice of the people*

Nope, you're totally the voice of the people now. I nominate you. Davian Korran, voice of the people!

But that's what I was thinking, too.

So, to recap, we are AMERICA, our birthday is July the 4th, we are bookish, intelligent, and couldn't run from zombies if our life depended on it.

We're a sophomore in high school starting today, and as we're running late for school a tiny...alien...thing hides up our skirt, we elbow a hobo in the face, and demand ANSWERS. You know. As you do.

Zafehouse taught me you don't run from zombies ANYWAY, you set them on fire, clobber them with baseball bats or shoot them in the face with shotguns.

Is the twist related to the spider suspended from the S and the, uhm, numbers that protag-chan is holding?

Hurrah for double amounts of threads!
...
I'm not going to be able to stop the "HAHAHAHAHA I'M THE HERO!" jokes, though. DEAL WITH IT.

I assumed it was a pun.
EVERYTHING should be a pun.
Or maybe my punny Geology teacher has made me expect puns everywhere.

There will be both Hetalia jokes and Bandit Keith jokes in this thread. Of this I have no doubt.

Will there be many puns? There better be puns.
If there aren't any, I'll have to make them.
With rocks.

Oh, this will be good.

Okay, so. We elbow a hobo, turn to Vi and demand to speak to life's manager! We don't have time for this, dammit, we're late for class!

The little alien dude wants to go to school with us, but we say:

Not until we get to the bottom of this mystery, Scooby Gang!

Vi continues to talk to himself about how skeptical humans are, and America gets angrier and angrier, declaring she's about to explode.

Evidently these aliens don't know 'figures of speech'. But we do get an introduction!

He informs us that he's stuck on Earth and needs our help.

But America is nothing if not stubborn. She refuses to believe this poppycock! She has no time for your shenanigans! And she leaves before "anything else weird happens".

We arrive at school with 5 minutes to spare, and run into a tan, blonde girl lamenting the existence of school. Oh, the angst!


Not very assertive, are we, America? What happened to your fighting spirit?

Tamera attempts to gossip with us, but is immediately distracted by BroodyMcBrooderson!

Aka Chase, the class hottie. Aka Mr. Tsundere. You know. With the fangirls.

Yep.

Classic tsun.

But then, something really weird happens. He goes all...sparkly.

I sense bad things are about to happen, somehow.

Uh oh.... The only picture that shows up for me is the fourth picture, the one with Tamera.

Dammit same here but I don't know what's wrong with it.

Try it now?

Got it! So here's the link you put for the image:
"http://i.imgur.com/qzsrG"
And here's the link that works:
"http://i.imgur.com/qzsrG.jpg"
The first one isn't recognized as an image. Always remember to use the direct link, not the regular link!

Okay, fixed! Donmai was correct! Let's romance more pixel boys!

I should totally try to decode that binary. It intrests me.

It says "Heartstring"! :D

Huh, so it does yes I really did type out that entire thing just to see if that was true. It was confusing, but fun.

AMERICA remembers him being sexy tsun last year, but not like this. Something is weird today. Something...



Yep. That. That's what I want to know, AMERICA!

Chase repeats his protestations of hatred, death to all things with vaginae, baffled perplexity that these girl-things keep TALKING at him, ect. He screams and runs away, and is pursued. Chased, even. Hur hur. AMERICA offers this stellar observation:


Tamera is all "I know, his hotness level is over 9000!" But that's not exactly what AMERICA means. She's shocked that she can actually keep a cool head around his royal Prissiness, for once. But then
-

Oh, fine. AMERICA, go!

America's response is...less than stellar. Bad AMERICA. She just wants to know what Vi is doing at her school, and Tamera is clueless in general. AMERICA, explain!


Uh-oh. Tamera, as it turns out, can't see Vi, a fact which Vi helpfully points out after AMERICA has already made a fool of herself. Vi has evidently extended his magical seeing-weird-alien powers to AMERICA only. AMERICA quickly gets rid of Tamera so she can ask Vi if she's going mad in peace.

Um, honey? You don't ask the voices in your head if you're hearing voices in your head. Just sayin'.

Vi explains.






But apparently Earth's radio waves are way too strong for a baby virus, and almost killed him when he came down here. Little dude had to perform surgery on himself!

But this does not answer the most pressing question, which is, obviously, AMERICA's sanity, or lack thereof. How come she can see you, Vi?


Oh. Well.

Vi explains that life h@x is a code he implanted in her brain so that she can see the unseeable, know the unknowable...



So, it's the Konami code of life, basically. AMERICA asks Vi why Chase was all sparkly earlier, and Vi answers that it's basically his aura. But in Chase's case particularly, it's more than that!



In other words, he has the power of the tsundere. Or, possibly, the Mary Sue! People will like him, love him, even if he doesn't want them to.

Vi continues that he's seen people on T.V. that also have attraction h@x, aka celebrities. Vi considers helping Chase control his attraction h@x, but remembers that he shouldn't do that. He's basically under a Prime Directive not to modify any organic life forms. And that his race isn't that great at modifying organics anyway.



And pinch herself repeatedly until she wakes up. Vi wants to follow her, but AMERICA doesn't negotiate with terrorists.





He's learning.



Okay, maybe he's learning too much.



Quickly, AMERICA, comfort him!



A for effort?

It cheers him right up, though, and he goes back to talking about his super evolved race, and his school report, and whatever this is:



Also, he wants AMERICA to be his lackey lab assistant. And he can't find someone else, because he might screw up somebody's brain if he tries again.



So as you can clearly see--waitaminute, the hobo? You gave h@x to the hobo?

He goes on to say that he would break Earth if he went around h@xxoring everyone. AMERICA is sad, because she thought they had something special.
Vi says he'll go hide in AMERICA's house. Just as she's gearing up to smack him down, though, we get this:



AMERICA has her priorities straight, though. She's late for class.



She tells him to stay out of her hair, and out of trouble. When they get home from school, Vi tries to steal her bed, America tells him to stay in the house, and plans ahead.



That's right! This year, we're going to run the mile in UNDER 15 minutes. Vi decides it's time for some amateur psychoanalysis:



AMERICA defends the masks we all wear, but Vi doesn't understand. AMERICA explains that people might not like the real her.



Okay, okay. Point taken.



Vi, never go to Canada. Promise me.

He continues to note that Tamera, for instance, isn't faking anything, and hypothesizes that AMERICA is scared of Tamera. AMERICA denies this, but...





Her response? Is literally "Don't touch my stuff."

And with that, we arrive at our first week of classes.

Soooo aliens are welcome in AMERICA so long as they don't touch what belongs to her.
Sounds about right~!
(By the way, you can use the "S" key for taking screenshots without the mouse in the way! The only downside is that they're automatically saved as .png files, which can be kinda big)