Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I'MA SMASH YA LIIIKE A-
Sorry this took a while to read. Holidays and being sick have not helped with my ADHD.
TLDR; A fantasy world with war brewing and a question of who sits on the throne.
Overall I'd rate it 2 smashing out of 5. Its weaknesses outweight its strengths, but with some work it can all turn around.
Grammar and Word Usage - Painfully Told - I cannot speak for the grammar rules. Grammar is not my strong suit. But the way the story is told is painful. Everything is told. Nothing is fleshed out or experienced. You know they are funny because you are told they are, not because they actually have humor. You are told they are changed because you are told they are, not because you see before and after comparison. Them joining one side or another is told its bad or insane, not because you have anything invested or understood about any side and their values or methods. Telling is for summary and not story, and this does the opposite in trying to make it all story. Not to mention the amount of cliche. Some cliche can be okay when done well, but they are shortcuts without substance or originality, and the amount of it here goes out of its way to sabatage the story. This also goes into the way the world building is established as well.
World Building - Shot itself in the foot - The world building is equally fascinating and disappointing. It is a unique universe with a clearly unique power structure that combines religion, power, and governmental structure at the same time to something slightly reminding me of Dragon Ball, Taoism, and Buddism. This concept is very interesting, mouth wateringly so.
However, the way it is expressed and explored is the problem. First you have the entire thing explained in a kind of wiki-page as a pre-prologue-prologue, and second there is no proper representative as an exploration of the concepts later because its all told. The art of telling versus showing is that telling just tells you that some deer got shot, while showing is the bambi movie that gets you interested in the characters and then shoots the deer. It is about creating investment and relatability. Telling will say 'and the king died at 22... oh well moving on.' while showing will give you his last breath with all of its regrets and mourning. The use of cliche's and things just being told robs you of the ability to look indepth, which the story fails to work with because it is trying to rely on indepth understanding of the characters without first letting you meet them, both literally and figuratively. It tries to get you to feel that Igneal joining some side in a universal war is madness, without giving the slightest idea of why that is.
Why should we give the slightest shit about either side? What justification is there for one side or the other? Who has right to the throne? What are their values, their resources, their geography, their community, their governmental structure, their views of justice vs anarchy, their science, their education, their identity, their food, their media or fun, their traditions and holidays, their medicine and health conditions, their view of community vs individual, their language, their laws, their social issues, their international relations, their pets, and so much more. Not a single thing is given so I know absolutely nothing about outside of a basic level of history as to the importance of a throne so when the story hinges on something so important as choosing sides I can only say 'why should I give a shit?'
