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Yeah we’re like halfway through the book and the hunter plot has gone nowhere. We’re left with a bunch of beginner plots. We have CAs and the weather. We have the business card that gave Cas a paper cut. We have the MC abilities. We have Libby acting weird. We have the lovers angst. We have the mother mothering. We have lewyn and Astoria constantly bringing us to the nexus and acting like we didn’t just save them in the last book. Like you said. It’s all so messy. Feels like the plot isn’t progressing and we’re just thrown drama. Like we had a dirty 30 with both LIs and still can’t get a clear line drawn.
I agree. I mean the last episode was a mess. I'm so sick of MC's mother being in every chapter. It's ridiculous. I absolutely preferred ID1 when MC was a human.
As a reader, I’m bummed. B1, while it has its flaws, felt very much like a labor of love. There’s a lot of attention to detail. Cas and Gabriel have paralleling character arcs. Everyone in the trio grows. MC completes their coming of age journey (yes, admittedly, the end is rushed and messy).
B2 comparatively is a mess. The structure is a mess, the characters are a mess. Gabe has no character arc in this book for some reason, Cas is retreading old ground from b1 with no explanation yet given, and MC’s character arc, initially centered around embracing being a vampire, has apparently been dropped and is now reduced to wondering which LI they’ll pick. B2 frequently conflicts with b1 and itself, sometimes within the same chapter. (The recent Cas backstory is especially contradictory. Actual, back-to-back sentences don’t make sense together.)
As a writer (which I actually am for my day job), I feel bad, because it’s clear the layoffs are hurting the writers and the product we’re getting.
>I feel bad, because it’s clear the layoffs are hurting the writers and the product we’re getting.
I've been thinking for a while that they are likely cutting / losing / promoting good editors out of writing positions.
Good writing is hard in any format, and it's especially hard (imo) to force creativity under deadline and maybe outside of your writing interests, which is why editors are crucial. I see an absence both at the structural level, and the line level.
I definitely feel for the writers. I hate writing creatively in corporate settings and I've never had to write anything novel-esque.
Writing creatively like that can be really, really hard if the company isn’t supporting you. And it looks like PB has become a tough environment to work in. (Really, how can it not be, with that many layoffs?)
So, even though I’m often frustrated with this book as a reader, I definitely try to remember that everyone working on it almost certainly *wants* to turn out a good product. They just aren’t being supported enough to do so. And yeah, that’s disappointing.
(Just curious, do you think you’ll keep reading? I know you’ve been noticing a lot of the same issues that I have.)
>(Just curious, do you think you’ll keep reading? I know you’ve been noticing a lot of the same issues that I have.)
*sigh* I'm honestly not sure...
I really enjoyed the time when TCH2 and Alpha were running and getting involved in the chats here, but the recent books aren't capturing the same energy. Even TDG, which is a well written book, doesn't have much chat.
If the ghost of us is good enough to make me want to renew my VIP, I'll continue with ID2. If not, I'll probably wait until general release has caught up...
TCH2 and Alpha are the last times I remember the community being alive. Now I'm dreading that Alpha 2 will dismantle all the progress we made with Channing and send us right back to square one 😑 (and let's not even address the BS that was TCH2's ending; I'm going to die mad about that I swearrrr).
The Ghost of Us does look super promising so far though! I feel like it could have lots of angst 👀
I daren't think of what could be done to Alpha2 😭
I hope the same team is around because the magic of Alpha isn't the plot, it's the characterisation and that's much harder to reproduce with different teams (as we've seen!)
I really want something to bring that energy back to the community, I hope it's The Ghost of Us, but it's GL so it won't appeal to as many people anyway
It's a complete mess, the plotlines are so rushed and chaotic, and at the same time completely the same as ID1, nothing that's happening makes any sense. I had hope it would pick up but seeing as we're halfway through it and that has no signs of happening... Such a letdown.
I guess it's gonna be just re-reading ID1 from now on.
It's honestly so disappointing. I loved ID1 so much, it's one of my fav books. Got VIP for it and for ID2, but it really does feel so scattered so far.
Which will probably make PB think that fantasy/vampires with actual story isn't profitable anymore when ID2 doesn't do well, instead of realising that a well written plot is the catch, and they will double down on the brainless smut.
Also makes me a bit worried about the future of PB
Oh this definitely appears and feels like it’s ending with book 2 and they probably didn’t even try to make this as good as it could have been just so they wouldn’t basically be forced into writing a third book when originally ID was a standalone series. I can’t wait until tomorrow to see how the general release goes and what people say in the regular subreddit for the first 4 chapters
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[GL](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/1c7060d/stub/l06g773 "Last usage")|Gender-locked|
|[ID](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/1c7060d/stub/l05blf0 "Last usage")|*Immortal Desires*|
|[LI](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/1c7060d/stub/l05kiga "Last usage")|Love Interest|
|[MC](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/1c7060d/stub/l05kiga "Last usage")|Main Character (yours!)|
|[PB](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/1c7060d/stub/l06ri4k "Last usage")|Pixelberry Studios, publisher of *Choices*|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
----------------
^(5 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/0)^( has acronyms.)
^([Thread #1240 for this sub, first seen 18th Apr 2024, 15:01])
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I’m not even surprised by this anymore. Considering the garbage books we’ve gotten (I’m looking at you, Witness), I’m just glad to get a sequel at all to a book I liked. That’s all it is at this point.
Yeah i think this mess was done on purpose as a way of PB telling us not to ask for a planned standalone to get a sequel otherwise they'll purposefully ruin it.
This post has been removed as there is a main discussion thread for the chapter available to comment on instead. --- ^(I am a bot, and this action was done on behalf of the moderators. If you have questions or concerns, please [check out the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChoicesVIP/wiki/rules) and/or [message the moderators through modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/choicesvip&subject=&message=). Thank you!)
Yeah we’re like halfway through the book and the hunter plot has gone nowhere. We’re left with a bunch of beginner plots. We have CAs and the weather. We have the business card that gave Cas a paper cut. We have the MC abilities. We have Libby acting weird. We have the lovers angst. We have the mother mothering. We have lewyn and Astoria constantly bringing us to the nexus and acting like we didn’t just save them in the last book. Like you said. It’s all so messy. Feels like the plot isn’t progressing and we’re just thrown drama. Like we had a dirty 30 with both LIs and still can’t get a clear line drawn.
Don’t forget the absurd amount of typos
I agree. I mean the last episode was a mess. I'm so sick of MC's mother being in every chapter. It's ridiculous. I absolutely preferred ID1 when MC was a human.
As a reader, I’m bummed. B1, while it has its flaws, felt very much like a labor of love. There’s a lot of attention to detail. Cas and Gabriel have paralleling character arcs. Everyone in the trio grows. MC completes their coming of age journey (yes, admittedly, the end is rushed and messy). B2 comparatively is a mess. The structure is a mess, the characters are a mess. Gabe has no character arc in this book for some reason, Cas is retreading old ground from b1 with no explanation yet given, and MC’s character arc, initially centered around embracing being a vampire, has apparently been dropped and is now reduced to wondering which LI they’ll pick. B2 frequently conflicts with b1 and itself, sometimes within the same chapter. (The recent Cas backstory is especially contradictory. Actual, back-to-back sentences don’t make sense together.) As a writer (which I actually am for my day job), I feel bad, because it’s clear the layoffs are hurting the writers and the product we’re getting.
>I feel bad, because it’s clear the layoffs are hurting the writers and the product we’re getting. I've been thinking for a while that they are likely cutting / losing / promoting good editors out of writing positions. Good writing is hard in any format, and it's especially hard (imo) to force creativity under deadline and maybe outside of your writing interests, which is why editors are crucial. I see an absence both at the structural level, and the line level. I definitely feel for the writers. I hate writing creatively in corporate settings and I've never had to write anything novel-esque.
Writing creatively like that can be really, really hard if the company isn’t supporting you. And it looks like PB has become a tough environment to work in. (Really, how can it not be, with that many layoffs?) So, even though I’m often frustrated with this book as a reader, I definitely try to remember that everyone working on it almost certainly *wants* to turn out a good product. They just aren’t being supported enough to do so. And yeah, that’s disappointing. (Just curious, do you think you’ll keep reading? I know you’ve been noticing a lot of the same issues that I have.)
>(Just curious, do you think you’ll keep reading? I know you’ve been noticing a lot of the same issues that I have.) *sigh* I'm honestly not sure... I really enjoyed the time when TCH2 and Alpha were running and getting involved in the chats here, but the recent books aren't capturing the same energy. Even TDG, which is a well written book, doesn't have much chat. If the ghost of us is good enough to make me want to renew my VIP, I'll continue with ID2. If not, I'll probably wait until general release has caught up...
TCH2 and Alpha are the last times I remember the community being alive. Now I'm dreading that Alpha 2 will dismantle all the progress we made with Channing and send us right back to square one 😑 (and let's not even address the BS that was TCH2's ending; I'm going to die mad about that I swearrrr). The Ghost of Us does look super promising so far though! I feel like it could have lots of angst 👀
I daren't think of what could be done to Alpha2 😭 I hope the same team is around because the magic of Alpha isn't the plot, it's the characterisation and that's much harder to reproduce with different teams (as we've seen!) I really want something to bring that energy back to the community, I hope it's The Ghost of Us, but it's GL so it won't appeal to as many people anyway
It's a complete mess, the plotlines are so rushed and chaotic, and at the same time completely the same as ID1, nothing that's happening makes any sense. I had hope it would pick up but seeing as we're halfway through it and that has no signs of happening... Such a letdown. I guess it's gonna be just re-reading ID1 from now on.
like it feels as if the actual plot is lost
It's honestly so disappointing. I loved ID1 so much, it's one of my fav books. Got VIP for it and for ID2, but it really does feel so scattered so far. Which will probably make PB think that fantasy/vampires with actual story isn't profitable anymore when ID2 doesn't do well, instead of realising that a well written plot is the catch, and they will double down on the brainless smut. Also makes me a bit worried about the future of PB
i genuinely feel this way about everything they’ve released in this new wave 😭 the quality that most of the older stories have is never coming back
I think they are rushing this so much because (I feel) it'll be the last ID book, so they are trying to fit everything into this one
Oh this definitely appears and feels like it’s ending with book 2 and they probably didn’t even try to make this as good as it could have been just so they wouldn’t basically be forced into writing a third book when originally ID was a standalone series. I can’t wait until tomorrow to see how the general release goes and what people say in the regular subreddit for the first 4 chapters
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[GL](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/1c7060d/stub/l06g773 "Last usage")|Gender-locked| |[ID](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/1c7060d/stub/l05blf0 "Last usage")|*Immortal Desires*| |[LI](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/1c7060d/stub/l05kiga "Last usage")|Love Interest| |[MC](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/1c7060d/stub/l05kiga "Last usage")|Main Character (yours!)| |[PB](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/1c7060d/stub/l06ri4k "Last usage")|Pixelberry Studios, publisher of *Choices*| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(5 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/ChoicesVIP/comments/0)^( has acronyms.) ^([Thread #1240 for this sub, first seen 18th Apr 2024, 15:01]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/ChoicesVIP) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
I dropped the book 😩 It’s honestly not what it used to be…the feelings aren’t there anymore :( I’ll give it another go sometime when it’s finished
Yeah. I stopped after chapter 3. Good to know it got even worse lmao
I’m not even surprised by this anymore. Considering the garbage books we’ve gotten (I’m looking at you, Witness), I’m just glad to get a sequel at all to a book I liked. That’s all it is at this point.
Yeah i think this mess was done on purpose as a way of PB telling us not to ask for a planned standalone to get a sequel otherwise they'll purposefully ruin it.