YMMV / Endless Summer

• Anti-Climax Boss: Many fans complained that the showdown against Rourke in Book 3 Chapter 11 is this despite the very high threat Rourke poses. Especially since he had the Omega Mech, which he could've used on the Catalysts except Estela.
• Base-Breaking Character: Mostly the fans are divided on each of the love interests and a few other characters.
  • Jake: Funny, handsome and a dream of a guy, while others consider him an overrated smartass who can't keep a stable opinion.
  • Sean: Lovable Jock and a perfect and noble guy or a Glory Hound with a Hero complex.
  • Quinn: Either a sweet Genki Girl who is always supportive and optimistic, or a Damsel Scrappy who has contributed little to the group and only provides fanservice.
  • Estela: Awesome Action Girl with a sympathetic backstory or a Wangsty jerk whose I Work Alone philosophy brings more harm than good to the group. The fact that she is significantly Out of Focus compared to the other love interests and the game's emphasis on The Power of Friendship comes to a screeching halt during her A Day in the Limelight episode doesn't help the matter.
  • Michelle: Is she a Clingy Alpha Bitch or a more in-depth smart girl who is too ambitious for her own good?
  • Aleister as of Book 2 Chapter 14: His betrayal of the group has divided the fanbase between those who outright hated him for turning his back on his friends and those who understood and forgave him because of the emotional abuse his father heaped on him and that he's seeing the bigger picture.
• Crack Pairing: The Series Finale’s Premium Option to see the alternate timelines includes a scene involving Estela/Zahra, who didn’t have any interaction in the canon timeline — unless the player has chosen to marry Estela, in which case this scene is replaced by a scene of Lila/Aleister, which pretty much equally fulfills this trope.
• Dry Docked Ship: It is heavily implied that Jake and Fiddler had a relationship in the past.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: IRIS, whose hilarious interaction with almost every single character in the story shoots her into an instant favorite despite only appear halfway through Act 3 of Book 1. Her fanbase got even stronger after it's revealed that she was modeled after Aleister's late mother.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Most of the players who found out about Craig and Zahra's past are hoping they will get back together. In book 2, the player has a premium option to help them get back together.
  • After Diego hints that he is interested in one of the guys from the group, many fans started to either ship him with Raj or Craig. The fanbase migrated after Varyyn was introduced.
• Franchise Original Sin: At the end of book one, the player is given a premium choice to rescue Grace, Raj, or both from the Vaanti. This is a mild attempt at Guilt-Based Gaming, but neither of them will die if not rescued — they just rough it on the island with Diego and harbor some mild resentment for not being rescued. Also, if you choose to leave them behind, Taylor states that they're under attack and can't take the risk of getting anyone else captured as well, which is somewhat understandable. Later books would have characters outright die if you didn't spend diamonds and other characters would then call you out for letting them die. These choices were much more disliked because of the high stakes and the potential for character interactions to be completely denied instead of just altered. Additionally, the reasoning behind the non-diamond choice would amount to the Player Character simply watching in horror when they could have done something, anything, else, which is far less justified than not wanting to risk more lives to save one.
• Funny Moments: When Diego, Michelle, and Raj are being pulled up a gorge on a cable by Varyyn, Diego yells out, "hold onto your butts!" Raj apparently gets worried that someone might take it literally.
  Raj: No, hold the cable! Not your butts!
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Quinn's perkiness comes to a new light after she reveals that her childhood illness is back and is killing her slowly. No wonder why the poor girl is trying to grab every moment. Book 2 expands on how her illness not only affected her health, but also her parents' relationship.
  • Craig comes as a selfish dumb guy who wants to party forever in an abandoned island, but later becomes sadder after Craig admits twice that he doesn't think he has a future waiting for him outside of the island and being a football player and Sean's best friend is the only thing he has.
    • This is even harsher when it was revealed that the outside world has been destroyed, meaning that he really has no future waiting for him, though this can be played straight or averted depending on the ending chosen in Book 3.
  • Aleister's bitterness and extensive knowledge of Rourke's empire after he reveals that Rourke is his father and he has been trying desperately to get his approval. He becomes so jaded that now he absolutely despises his father so much, to the point he decided to risk his life getting to the island just to tell him how much he resents him. Much later, in an attempt to save Grace’s life and extend the olive branch with his father, has to betray the group, despite how much he is regretting it. Despite all this, Rourke never considered him once, and even reveals that Aleister is really a clone of him, a failed experiment that will always pale in comparison to his real biological daughter.
  • Retroactive example with Rules of Engagement. Blaire Hall has an argument with her daughter over the phone before Grace boards the plane to La Huerta. The discussion becomes even sadder when one stops to think that there's little chance, they get to see each other again after that.
  • Treating Michelle badly and possibly hooking up with Sean becomes harsh once Book 2 reveals that Michelle never cheated on Sean and was set up by her sorority out of spite, which explains Michelle's initial defensive attitude around Sean. Treating her nicely might be the first decent treatment she ever got since the breakup. Her relationship with Sean also becomes heartbreaking because Sean never gave her the opportunity to explain herself before dumping her on the spot, despite having been together for two years. Fortunately, Book 2 Chapter 12 gives Taylor the opportunity to encourage Michelle to tell the truth about what happened, allowing both of them to move on.
  • Estela cheering Lila up in Book 2 Chapter 8 goes south as soon as we learn two chapters later that Lila was the one who killed Estela's mother to protect Rourke's secret plan.
  • In Book 1 Chapter 11, Craig made a passing comment on how the gang might have to repopulate La Huerta. Everyone else dismissed it as silly, but by Book 2 Chapter 14, it lost its humor when it's revealed that the outside world has been destroyed by volcanic eruptions bringing the world back to the Hadean Eon, leaving the humans in La Huerta as the Last of Their Kind.
  • An early suggestion that Rourke might be involved in cloning (in reference to the sabertooth tiger) becomes this when it's revealed in Book 3 that Rourke has already cloned himself, the result of which was Aleister.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In Book 3 Chapter 12 during a montage of possible timelines, Diego beats the all-time high score on an arcade game to Craig and Zahra’s delight with her saying “Billy Mitchell who?” This chapter came out on April 13, 2018, when Mitchell’s high scores on Donkey Kong were rendered null and void.
• Ho Yay: Not counting all the interactions between Male!Taylor with Jake and Sean, Female!Taylor with Quinn and Estela, and Diego with Varyyn.
  • Craig's loyalty towards Sean is so strong that Craig vowed to follow his lead even to the end of the Earth. His profile also says that, despite his lower intelligence, he isn't easy to manipulate since he's too loyal to Sean.
  • During Chapter 14, Diego hints that he likes a guy from the group, since he uses a masculine pronoun. Some of the readers are theorizing that he has a crush on Sean, since he knew all his details even before Taylor did.
  • In a premium scene, there's a lot of Belligerent Sexual Tension between Jake and Sean. Taylor has the option to have Jake, Sean or both at the same time to apply lotion on his/her back. If the player chooses the third option, while very awkward, both keep bickering on which is the best way to apply the cream, getting even more flustered when their hands touch accidentally.
  • Grace gave the letter intended to be her last word to her mother Blaire to Taylor if the player has a "Like" status with her regardless of gender. Keep in mind that this occur even if Taylor convinced her to talk to Aleister led to the two confessing their feeling for one another.
  • Some of the alternate timelines in Book 3 Chapter 12 show scenes featuring many of these, such as Sean and Jake, Estela and Zahra, and Michelle and Grace.
  • Jake's entire relationship with Mike bathes in this constantly, especially since he is bi.
• I Knew It!:
  • Fans have long speculated that the Endless is Taylor, which was finally confirmed in the Book 2 epilogue (if you've collected all 12 catalyst idols and solved the following puzzle) or in Book 3 Chapter 5 for those who didn't get the bonus scene.
  • Fans also speculated that Mouse is Mike because of their similar poses. This is confirmed in the Book 2 finale, when Jake breaks Mouse's helmet during their fight.
• Jerkass Woobie: the "Jerkass" varies on how well the player gets along with the characters.
  • Craig's belief that nobody is expecting him back home is sad, adding the fact that he lost his friendship with Zahra because they both changed into different people, and he thinks that he has no other talent outside of being the muscle of the group. This gets expanded on in Book 2, where it's revealed that he indeed has no prospects after graduating, as his dream team rejected his application. It gets even more tragic when the vision shows an alternative future where he decides to stay behind and die to give his friends more time to flee from the Arachnids.
  • Aleister also has a cold demeanor towards everyone because he is afraid to be hurt emotionally like how his father was distant towards him. His desperation for his father's approval and nearly losing Grace during their visit to a post-apocalyptic Hartfeld, pushes him to betray the group believing he's doing the right and safest option. To take this up to eleven is the revelation that Aleister is really Rourke's clone, who Rourke himself bluntly declares a failure. It requires both Grace, Taylor and his own Ember of Hope to get him out of the Heroic BSoD.
  • Book 2 reveals a significant detail about Michelle after Taylor grabs the first catalyst idol. It turns out that Michelle didn't cheat on Sean, and it was a lie from her sorority sisters out of spite. She is so shocked by the backstabbing that the only thing she has left to do is form a shield and be aloof towards everyone. An alternative flash forward shows that she will separate from the group, thinking that nobody likes her, that she's the one to blame for the supposed deaths of Craig and Aleister and sailing right into a storm. After learning this, it's very probable that the player would want to hug Michelle and apologize if they were mean to each other in Book 1.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Taylor not only has been shipped with any of the four Love Interests, since improving relationship with all the characters involves the Ship Tease (with Diego, Aleister, Grace and Zahra the most commented on), and even got fans wanting to ship Taylor with Seraxa, Yvonne, etc.
• Love to Hate: In a survey, Rouke was multiple times mentioned as a genius villain fans love to hate.
• Magnificent Bastard: The Endless A.K.A. a future version of Taylor, travels back in time 2,139 times in order to put into motion the entire events of the books, including but not limited to inventing an entire religion for the Vaanti and waging a civil war.
• No Yay: The fandom's collective reaction to Lila/Aleister in one possible timeline shown by the Endless due to not only it broke up fan-favorite couple Grace/Aleister but also because of the gross power imbalance between them, not to mention Lila mentioning that she is in love with Aleister because he looks like his father.
• One True Threesome:
  • The Yaoi fangirls like to ship Male!Taylor/Jake/Sean, with Taylor as the common love interest and all the Belligerent Sexual Tension between Jake and Sean.
  • Quinn/Taylor/Jake and Jake/Taylor/Estela are also not uncommon among some fans, no matter Taylor's gender.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: While not being officially Scrappies and more a case of a Broken Base with a very vocal opposition, this is the case for Michelle, Aleister, Zahra, and Craig, who are the characters who start with a negative relation with Taylor depending on the interactions with them. They stopped being Scrappies for the rest of the players after their Character Developments kicked in.
• Rewatch Bonus: Lots and lots of this if you know the full story. One prominent example is Taylor's true nature as both the Endless and a part of Vaanu.
• The Scrappy:
  • Unlike the examples above, most of the fans have expressed their dislike towards Lila, since her perky persona, suspicious and secretive attitude and Undying Loyalty to Everett Rourke has rubbed most in a bad side.
  • Fans have also expressed their dislike for Kele, who barely says anything and contributes almost nothing to the plot besides being another example of La Huerta's time anomalies. Not helping matters is Quinn's flirty interactions with him, which rubbed most people, particularly those who are romancing her, the wrong way.
• Seasonal Rot: Book 3 is considered by many to be a low point in the series. Major complaints include the uneven pacing of the storyline, the introduction of unnecessary plot threads that were either dropped or quickly wrapped up with very little payoff, and the anticlimactic showdown against Rourke.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • Some fans complain that Diego and Varyyn's relationship is this. They pointed out that the Vaanti led by Varyyn attacked the Celestial and seemingly had no hesitation killing the Catalysts if they resisted, as evidenced by Varyyn killing Diego or one of the love interests when he first crashed into the Celestial, though this was reversed by Taylor. Later, the Vaanti held Diego hostage for six months and forced him to teach them English, hardly ideal circumstances for a romance to occur.
  • Likewise, Kele and Quinn's flirty interactions rubbed fans off the wrong way because not only have they interacted very few times, but Quinn's attraction comes across as one-sided. Especially egregious if Taylor is dating Quinn.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Most of Sean's storyline and character interaction is hidden behind Premium Choices, thus it makes the interaction with him much shallower than the other Love Interest. Book 3 is the most blatant examples of this: He is the same person he was at the start of the series, is the only Love Interest whose secret wasn’t incorporated into the main plot and is the only character still struggling with the issues he came to the island with, in his Ember of Hope.
  • The Oryctoraptor, Guardian of the Deep, only appears in one chapter and has almost zero storyline/backstory compared to the other Island Guardians.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Uqzhaal and the Anarchronists turning against the Endless could have been a compelling plot point and an interesting exploration of the impact of the Endless's action... if it has lasted longer than 2 scenes before being solved abruptly by Rourke blasting them with the Omega Suit.
• Tear Jerker: All of the endings to some extent.
  • Rourke's ending is the least of these, but all of the character and relationship development of the story has been wiped out, Quinn is once again terminally ill (which is in direct contradiction of a promise that Rourke makes to Taylor if Taylor is dating Quinn), and Jake and Mike are permanently on the run.
  • The final scene of the Endless' ending is the characters making a toast to the lost future and the loved ones they lost with it.
  • Vaanu's ending is probably the most tear-jerking of all, as Taylor's heartfelt goodbye message runs under the final montage.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Sean became this after it's revealed that Michelle never cheated on him, and he blindly chose to believe other people (as in Michelle's sorority) instead of listening to his two-year girlfriend, which could be interpreted by many of the readers as Sean not being too devoted to the relationship and he was looking for a way out as soon as the opportunity presented.
• The Woobie: Most of the characters are revealed to have had very difficult lives. Particular mention goes to the following:
  • Quinn. She was ill with Rotterdam's Syndrome since she was a child and spent most of her childhood locked up at home. The treatments were so expensive that it costed all the family's savings and indirectly caused them to get divorced. After getting better by an experimental treatment, Quinn could go to a normal high school and college. That's until she reveals to Taylor that she relapsed a few days before the trip, and she has a shorter lifespan. Add that to also being stuck in an island full of killer creatures with no escape. Things for her get worse in Book 2 since the time travel accelerates her illness to terminal state, and the only solution to cure her was to obtain "The Island's Heart". Unknowingly for everybody, she gets cured but also gets possessed by a mysterious spirit, a fact only Taylor and Uqzhaal are aware of.
  • Grace also when she reveals that her mother is Blaire Hall. She lived all her childhood and puberty trying to live up to her mother's expectations. And if you have read Rules of Engagement, her mother was about to cancel another gathering before Grace gets into the plane to La Huerta. Book 2 also expands on her self-esteem issues explaining that she got arrested because of her repressed frustrations by all the high expectations people have from her. This fatal flaw is the one that will cause her death in the future.
  • The Endless A.K.A. Taylor is revealed to be this. They mentioned watching their friends die 2,139 times, and every travel back to time was an attempt to keep them all alive, and every action a trial and error. By the end of the second act of Book 3, The Endless finally dies from their wounds while saying goodbye to their dead friends from the original timeline in the sky.
  • Yvonne in Book 3 Chapter 5. After her brother Patrice died when she was overseas, she sought the Fountain of Youth, not because she wanted eternal youth, but she wanted to bring Patrice back to life, only to realize that the only thing she could do was to have one last talk with him. Regardless of whether or not the player picked the premium option to encourage her to talk to him, she broke down sobbing, which makes it compelling to give her a hug.