A year ago I read a story for a smash, but poked so many holes into it via comments along the way that the author threw in the towel and told me to stop and not keep reading. I brought her to drinking. I made her cry. I started to have a bit of a reputation on our mutual discord as I drank in the delicious tears. I left destruction and mourning in my path and people knew to fear me as they formed support groups for my victims.

Now, after rewriting the whole thing, the author has thrown herself on the altar to be sacrificed and to test me. To challenge. ME!

TLDR; An original fantasy following a girl trying to save her people, make friends along the way,  and find out who she is beyond being a girl with a fetish for being high. Also dragons. And its the first part of a trilogy.

Main Characters - Smashing! - The main characters are cool, badass in healthy ways, with clear emotion and values. There is plenty of mystery behind them and their actions that is revealed over time. Pre-rewrite one was a mary sue and the other was an enabler to the sue-ness, and this has been, thank god, smashed. One is Wren and the other is Lorca. They both do their jobs well, bringing drive and purpose. They have their flaws and weaknesses, and there is some drama (albeit weakly), and some humor. 

I love the improvements to Lorca, he seems to finally have some competence and personality instead of a 'OMG YOU SO AWESOME I MUST BOW BEFORE YOU' mouthpiece to Wren's awesomeness. Even as he fails, he at least tries to fight, and is capable of dealing with heavy blows. He teaches from experience, he finally has solid motivation that really brings out his pain and dreams to light, and he grows from being a side character to a proper primary. Yet even while saying that, it is just short of a fully well-rounded character. There is yet a little further he can go. Could use small improvements to really bring out things already shown. Like he has said he has never been out far, so bring out the mystery to him where he explores. Even something as simple as giving him a honeybun and he is like "what is this? it looks weird" and then he takes one bite and is instantly addicted because its the best shit he's ever eaten. The growth in him is fine and the growth as a character works fine, but there are some moments that the story is just begging to have that aren't there to keep it light in act 2. Like I loved the whole thing about them pondering the idea of setting fire to shit in act 3, that was hilarious and perfect and showed him as having that side of himself. Just take the elements and plotpoints presented and explore them, give them room to breath, instead of leaving them behind as quickly as they appear.

The way various mysterious aspects to Wren are drawn out is very interesting. She is no longer being conveyed as a damn Mary Sue who needs to be elevated and praised every few seconds. She seems out of her element and trying to keep up with the help of others and she does get through situations by the skin of her teeth a few times, and the fact that she asked to learn a few things was a big deal. Like Lorca, though, she could use a bit of improvement in act 2. She is well rounded in act 1, but in act 2 there is an expectation of being out of one's element that isn't handled... at all. For someone who has never touched money, never been in a big city, and has never experienced the culture and ways of the lower areas or big cities, she has little to no need to learn anything or figure out how to fit in. It might just me being picky, but when there is an entire element of world building of someone being relocated from one place to another, I would expect a sense of proper transition as they are out of their element. Someone who has never handled money will mess up with it. Someone who has lived in icy mountains will wear heavier clothes and be seen as weird, a foreigner, and get REALLY hot while also herself finding the clothes of the plains odd. Hell she could even be like "WOMAN EXPOSE THEIR ARMS?! THATS PRACTICALLY NAKED!!!" And there is never given room for anything like this, no sense of awe or learning of new places to really bring them to life, not the same kind of awe allowed that brought act 1 to being so great. The reason people loved the world building of harry potter or LOTR so much is that the authors pulled Harry/Hobbits out of their original place and put them in a world foreign to them where the characters had to learn and be filled with a sense of wonder, and brought us along for the ride.

When you get to act 3 the two of them are vastly improved. There is some romance (lets be real, authors always go for the most predictable route ever of sticking the first male/female they get into a romance), some identity crises that isn't actually dealt as a crises, and generally just a period that felt extremely human and allowed them to be involved. (more on this later.) 

Side Characters - mixed bag - Some of the side characters are very well done and cool and serve different tones and purposes that fit the act they are in. Act 1 SCs are chill, think of small problems and dynamics, and have a homey feel. Act 2 SCs are more involved in the wide world and its problems but still keep to themselves. Act 3 is full blown politics, orchestration and power moved on a large scale, and nobody able to mind their own business. This escalation is smooth and fits with everything. The SCs also largely offer a variety of pawns to play with the MCs in different ways. I liked pretty much everyone from Act 1 and 3. They made the world rich and colorful and powerful and have weight, but the SCs from act 2 were just... well... let me explain.

The caravan and its motives have had small changes but a large impact. They feel more involved, more alive, and less random/retarded in doing something to aid Wren. The fact that they are already going to do something and want to bring her along for the ride as thanks for doing them a favor already versus them changing all of their plans to go cross country and wage war over her picking up a random-ass scrolls from a tower is not just a huge difference, its polar opposite. This was a small change but its about as polar opposite as Luke Skywalker and Rey Sue. Yet even as much as I love the improvement on them, on a basic level I am not a fan. Both of the old and new versions. The reason is that the caravan, as a narrative entity, takes control of the narrative and pacing away from the MCs. I like the caravan and the characters in it, they are colorful and nice and offer things to the world, but if I had to choose between the MCs going their own way and deciding their own pace and struggles to reach the destination versus joining another group and letting that group decide how fast they move or how slowly, I would generally choose the former because MCs who are truly in control and taking the steering wheel are incredibly powerful and loved, while MCs who hand the reins over to side characters for extended periods of time are seen as weaker. Like Frodo/Sam did in Fellowship of the Ring until Gollum led the way. Keyphrase: Extended-period-of-time. It is fine to have allies and work together and coordinate, but most of Act 2 in terms of how many chapters it takes is decided by the pacing of the side characters. And this loss of control for the MCs weakens them. The MCs lose involvement. And this shoots the pace in the foot. (more on this later. its a multi-facet problem.)

Now for the big problems with the SCs.

Bad guys are stupid and non-threatening so there isn't much, if any, tension. At any point. The protagonists have access to some powers and armies, but outside of one action, are a combination of incompetent, inactive, and so truly and incredibly imbecilic. There is no active threat, and what actions they do take seems mindbogglingly stupid. I get the fact that the hero is moving stealthily, so I wouldn't expect assassins all over the place, and I can get the lesser guards being ignorant, thats normal. But the decisions the higher-up enemy makes most of the time its a wonder she was promoted out being a janitor at McDonalds. She, literally, could have done nothing. She, could have done, anything, except the one thing she did do, and everything would have worked out for her. But no. She did the one plan, out of millions, that was so unironically, so stunningly, and against all rational and reason, stupid. The enemy in this story fits the quote by Napoleon Bonaparte, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." I laughed when I realized what she had done until I almost cried in laughter in the sheer mockery of stupidity I witnessed and wondered if she was a joke and there was a real villain yet to be revealed whose entire agenda was to have a laugh. Every word she says. Every action she takes, whether by her own PoV or someone elses. xD Doesnt matter if its act 1, 2, or 3, its consistently redundant and imbecilic. It has to be on purpose! Author, come on, did you actually make her to be a joke?? XDDDD 

We still aint done, oh no. There are so many SCs involved that this keeps going. (this is also what happens when the SCs take control of the story!)

The dark-fae-forest-dude still feels random as hell. Not as much as before because a lot of his fluff and bullshit was cut away and left with the dry bones, but he still just feels like filler. I seriously cannot tell what he is supposed to offer. Even if he offers nothing to the characters or their journeys, then why not let him be an element of world building? I dont mind filler when it offers something to the world, and if anything, I prefer them. I prefer moments where things are slowed down enough to really breath in the world. However there are still two problems. 1) His entire existance is a cut-off pace from what happened just before. Imagine Avengers EndGame. You have Thanos and his forces about to collide with the Avengars army. The two go running at each other. Fists are raised and people leap and punches collide- and now we are in Dora the Explorer looking for the damn rodent. For 30 minutes. Then as soon as we find the rodent we return to Avengers end-game to find Tony Stark dead and Thanos dead and a lot of people just dead. 2) He is so easily replaceable and disposable. When I reflect on the side character, who isn't even named as he is so unimportant, and wonder why he is there or what purpose he has both in the immediate arc but in the entire world, never mind the fact a nameless side character caused an entire important fight we were getting pumped up for to be reduced to a charge with no followup, then I am left with nothing. Characters who are replaceable are a waste of time. He could be an agent of the Empress, which could then bring more threat to her and possibly a sense of her being in league with the demons they fought or a rogue element. He could be the last remnants of a fae people in the forest struggling to survive and trusting no one, and that would bring so much life and pain to the world that is just so juicy while linking it to elements already introduced on the villains side. He could be a dragon/dragonair that fled and hid himself away in self-exile. He could be a demon worshipper or witch that lives alongside the demons to keep them being summoned and so sends out a message via spiders that some prisoners have ben captured for the demons to come eat, and this would pose him as a threat relevant to what just happened, bring a strong sense of urgency, and push them hard. No, joke, I just came up with all of this in seconds. It would be so damn easy to make him something really good, something relevant, and something powerful to both the characters and world building. He doesn't even need to say a single word about it, but the environment he lives in could speak for him, showing what he has kept and keeps to mind. But the house is empty. the environment is an empty hut partially underground. He could be so so many things, but nothing is used, nothing is gained, and instead an opportunity is deprived. He could be replaced entirely with, literally, nothing. Just delete the scene entirely and we wouldn't be any better or worse off than we were before. And when you have a character or element that is easy to replace like this with practically anything, then what value does it truly have? Even his second appearance felt so random I had to double-check the entire chapter to be sure I read it correctly. He entered the scene and left again so quickly I could have blinked and missed it, and amazingly, wouldn't have noticed a difference in the story if I had, which still brings to question why in the hell is he there. then he is presented a third time, merely as a name mostly, and I am again thinking "why???" Why waste our time with not just 1 appearance, but 3, as well as constantly referencing him having done something to the MC for the next 5-10 chapters when what he had technically done was... well... uh... nothing.

AND WE STILL AINT DONE! One more round! (this one pissed me off)

One thing that annoys the ever living hell out of me that a lot of people do, and I hated to see this story do as well, is political pandering. One of the biggest things I always emphasis is relevance. A plot point, element, object, person, trait, or even word, if it has no place in the grand scheme of the plot, arc, and scene, and if it is never utilized to push a plot or bring to light the world, then what relevance does it have? This ultimately includes anything political such as abortion, homosexuality, or anything that is modern and exists in our own culture as a hot button topic. Do people do these kinds of things in stories or history or just life as a whole, sure! But what does it have to do with the plot? Using my own story as an example there are plenty of characters who have relationships, with men and women, or have done things that would be interesting, but I never write it, because what would be the point except to jump on bandwagons and get cheap points thinking "If I include a black bi transexual muslim princess woman of native-american/jewish/australian descent born dirt poor, surely I will punch all of the political identity boxes and that automatically makes my story better!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-no. I promise if you sat with all your characters that exist in the background that remain unmentioned and ask them about their lives, they would have traits like these that can punch every identity-box under the sun, but you already, as an author, know not to include them, because these random-ass people aren't relevant and offer nothing to the story you have in mind. Hence their unmentioned status. If you want to include homosexuality or abortion or feminisms or scream 'hong kong belongs to china' or 'screw the jews' or whatever you want, go ahead. I will happily, HAPPILY, read a story of two horny as shit homosexuals where that trait is a primary point in an actual plot than a fantasy story where the two characters happen to have homosexual trait and that has no relevance to anything at any point and the author inserted it because lulz. Its about being true to the story. To know if it is or isn't, think this thought: "If this subject isn't such a fad these days, would I have normally put it in into the story or presented it in this manner?" If you can say 'yes', which I swear to god 99% of stories do, then kill it and beg your characters for forgiveness. Mary Sues make reading difficult, but this instantly pisses me off. I respect people who truly believe a political subject and keep to the purpose of the story, regardless of whether I agree with the subject or not, than people who just pretend and jump on bandwagons to be popular. Its that white-girl fake sjw woke bullshit.

If the two lesbians had been used actively, it wouldnt be so shallow to have them. Hell, I'd actually like them more than the random fae forest dude and they might be a nice pair to have going into act 3, but their entire existance is confined to a single paragraph seemingly. That is so freakin shallow. Hell, if you had even just made it subtle with the hand holding alone and not made a big deal about shoving the rest of it down our throats, it would have been good and just part of world building for the caravan. But its like you were trying to shove your politics. Which is just insulting and guaranteed to piss me off INSTANTLY.

All of this was act 2.

Act 3 has so many pieces and characters moving, though, that it has become difficult to keep track of them. As someone who juggles a large number of characters, I respect the attempt. However a few of the characters become a bit flat and are difficult to track. The former because they aren't being given character-defining things in contrast to other characters while the latter because there is not much in the way of reminders. Things like titles or defining traits to bring up on occassion as reminders go a long way. Like it is one thing to have [name][name][name][name][name] being used in a paragraph, but it is another to go [Alucard][The nightwalker][named dracula backwards][pet to the hellsing organization]["a real f******** vampire" he said after killing Edward][killed a lot of people to get this [vampire] title].

 Grammar & Word Usage - Smashing! - The punctuation and grammar is 99.9% good. There were a few moments where a word confused me, but I brought them up in comments and the tiny things were fixed. Nothing else held me back. The story flowed quite well, at least in terms of grammar. It was easy to read.

World Building - Semi-Smashing - The world building is difficult to place properly because it has so many things going for it in both directions. At first you have an imaginative world of several races, rich with history, bursting with politics, and you have two characters whose journey from their confined places into this world should bring exploration and wonder. This is incredibly dynamic and just *chef kiss*. I love Act 1 and like Act 3 quite a bit. But, then this falls short as the MCs dont really emphasis the exploration of places they go to much in Act 2 (where most of it is) and the SCs that are used to show the culture, life, and day-to-day people of this world are... again... a mixed bag. Then you also have the sudden addition of the whole demonic-side-worldbuilding addition that was thrown into the final part of act 3 with Flynn. Not that it wasn't excellent when taken in its own, but it is placed in the worst spot possible. The point of final acts is to bring resolution and a new world order from a conflict between the old and new. This is the point when the recipe settles and is cooked, not when you add a ton of raw ingredients to change up the recipe. That stuff, if anything, can wait for the sequel.

Plot - Semi-Smashing - When I think of the plot as a whole, in its most perfect form, I think it is an incredible one, at least in how I understand it. But, it is flawed because it doesnt quite hit the mark alongside SCs that drag it down. Its close. So very close to being something worthy of a mind-blowing smash, but it misses so ever slightly because it almost feels like the batter didn't keep his eye on the ball.

The story is one of identity, of multiple identities. The first trigger, one would think, is the invasion. But no, its not. While it is a trigger, it is a trigger to only one plotline. The very first trigger is right off the bat with her climbing. Climbing towards what? Towards herself. The MC is drawn to a place, for reasons unknown. Its like that kid who wants to be an astronaut, only for her it really is in reach by just climbing. This climbing is everything. It shows desire, ambition, drive, ability to struggle and to do shit herself, and what she climbs toward is the wonder and awe and exploration of a nation that is long since dead. Kinda like modern day Atlantis. She reminds me of Milo (Atlantis lost empire) at heart. This sets off the first plotline of her identity as it is tied to this place, and her connection to the mountain as she meets Lorca. There is also hints that she is connected magically/spiritually to this civitilization in some way. Then we have the second plotline of her identity as tied, not to the mountain, but to her family and village all the way at the bottom of it. This second plot, this is an identity that roots her, but it is is brought to a crises when the second trigger pops in and everyone is taken away. She gains Lorca, the embodiment of her first plotline and identity, as an ally in rescueing them. So begins Act 2. 

Generally, there isn't much moving the story forward in Act 2. The antagonists trigger the main plot going into Act 2, but then their pace screeches to a halt. The protagonist goes off on her adventure in response to the trigger, but then her 'pace' becomes dictated by the marching speed of the caravan she joins, thereby removing her own pace and putting it as a side plot. So while Act 1 has a very solid pace where the main characters decide its flow and movements, Act 2 has a very unclear pace because neither side of the conflict decides how fast or slow it is. Don't get me wrong, it has the right number of chapters. Its not too long or too short and time is given to a lot of elements that are needed and while there is some filler it is minimal. If you actually diagnose it, then its pacing is solid. But the fact that the streering wheel, the control, is taken out of the MCs hands, as well as the enemies hands, turns the pacing element into neither a proactive nor responsive pace, but something that feels entirely alien. As reader I couldn't tell how fast or slow the pace was, how long or short it was supposed to be, if they were taking forever to reach their destination or if they moved at WarpSpeed. Act 2 tackled many elements, both in characterization and the world, that were necessary, and it handled them much better than before, but the only thing moving the pace forward is outside the control of anyone important. So despite how many things occur, how many plot lines continue and how many plot points are tackled, it feels like it is on autopilot instead of driven and controlled and paced. The pacing just... kinda happens. 

This pacing also isn't helped as the two identity plotlines aren't reinforced or pushed too hard. She goes on a journey to hold onto the village-identity while the mountain-identity is brought out step by step by her growth. This is great. But it misses the mark slightly as it needs to remind us of what is at stake, which I think it doesn't do a single time. 90% of the interludes pertaining to her family is in act 3, when it would have been perfectly fitting in act 2 as a reinforcement of why she is going on this journey. Not all at once, but at a controlled pace. Nor does the story ever seem to really bring out the conflict within the two identities. She just... accepts it or ignores it entirely. Finally she constantly, both in act 2 and 3, thinks of Lorca as someone who represents her old identity, but this misses the mark because he is a connection to the mountain-identity, not the village-identity. I guess this could be trying to convey both at the same time, but Lorca has no connection to the village at all, only the mountain. He belongs on the mountain-identity plotline while the villagers and their interludes belong on the village-identity plotline, yet the former is presented as a connection to both while the latter isn't reinforced as what is at stake.

This made the Act 2 quite confusing along with all the SCs in it that really didn't help and their pacing issues.

Act 3 proves to be a huge step up, even from an improved act 2. The story is more driven by the MCs (though not enough), you have more active pieces moving in the world that have weight and consequence, you have more weighted words within political intrigue, the basic level intelligence of everyone seems to go up for both good and bad to our heros, mysteries are being revealed in decent ways that (most of the time) matter enough to bring something to the world, the pace feels more tight, the random ass fae dude is long gone, there is (finally) humor that makes me chuckle. 

But where Act 3 fails to hit the mark is in its use of the conflict between Mountain-Identity and Village-Identity and a new N-Identity (more on this later). Through Act 2 she grows the Mountain-Identity enough that using it allows her to save the Village-Identity, but as the two plotlines come to a head in its final conflict there isn't much of a conflict between the identities.  Even though technically the two cannot co-exist. Lorca represents the mountain and her sister represents the village. Wren's choice then, rather than have the conflict, is to tell her sister to run while she takes care of business using the other identity and saying she will come back for her. Technically works, but this is cheap. It removes the purpose of everything she had been doing through the Village-Identity plot in personally rescueing people and instead shoves that responsibility onto the SCs to take care of.  It avoids the conflict entirely while taking the pace away from herself, AGAIN. Then her Mountain-Identity is brought into conflict with a battle, with a no-name cheap villain, and... instead of it being a matter of "accept the mountain" its turned into "stop holding back". This chapter with the conflicting natures was close, so freakin close to being exactly what the two plotlines needed, but it missed the mark by a centimeter with one single line. Telling her to stop holding back is different from accepting an identity that has been growing since chapter one. This, again, side-steps the conflict between her two identities. So as she woops ass, nothing is resolved. Nothing has changed. Nothing has reached its completion or new stage.

Then you also, suddenly, have a third identity with N. This third plotline has its good points. It has a person tieing it to Wren, just as Lorca and her sister do to their own identities and plotlines. It has a lot of nice world building and cool stuff going for it. Flynn's plot is fast paced and solid on its own. It is short but could work as a short story on its own because it hits all the right buttons in the right order while giving time and emotion to the things that matter. *chef kiss*. But what it does for Wren is take two plotlines that is reaching its conclusion and slam a whole new player into the mix with all the grace of an asteroid. The foreshadowing is there but it doesn't seem to be about the identity of the mountain or identity of the village, but a third one that hadn't been explored and is presented at the last second. This isn't necessarily bad depending on how it is handled in the sequel, as its timing can work fine, but it is something to be cautious in handling this third identity inside her and how it conflicts with the first two and how she settles into herself with three people and three forces and three plotlines all pulling her in different directions where the conflict hasn't really been handled as of yet. Side stepping conflicts isnt the same as handling them. A physical conflict, one of merely punching and shooting fireballs without purpose, cannot replace a a true conflict of morals, conflicting convergence of philosophy, and the meaning behind them and the growth of the characters. So the key line from this third identity is, yet again, "stop holding back". which is nothing benefiting her.

"Stop holding back" is a lesson learned by someone who is cowardly, pacificist, incapable of action, super reactionary, etc. It was the lesson of Gohan from Dragon Ball because he always had incredible power but it came when he snapped and he was, by nature, a pacifist and hated conflict in all forms. Wren is not like that. She has no problem whatsoever with conflict or throwing everything she has at something. If anything she is too much into the idea of diving head over heels into everything. Her lesson would be restraint and control and knowing when to act and not to act, not a lesson of taking action. Hell, the very first chapter, the very first paragraphs, is of her NOT HOLDING BACK. 

Finally, the last thing, the thing that hurts the plot and SCs the most, is relevance. The story is about identity and the conflict between her identities. Even as blunt as the N-Identity is in shoving itself in the middle of the two other identities at the last second with a whole new plotline, this bluntness doesnt hurt the story as much as this singular fact of relevance. Which can be done with a single question.

What do the SCs, and most of all the villain, have to do with it?

The villagers are relevant, yes. Lorca is relevant. Her sister, Flynn. Pretty much everyone from Act 1 is relevant. But what does anyone else have to do with her identities? The big bad guy doesnt seem connected nor is directly involved in the split between three identities, instead she ends up having nothing to do with any of them. Instead that right, that conflict, is left over to a random girl found in jail. Every rival to the hero needs to be a rival around the central theme of the story and their arc. If you have a villain whose existence is disconnected from the hero's existence, then the conflict fizzles out as technically both sides can get what they want without destroying the other. The villain needs to represent the opposite of the hero's philosophy, the darkness to their light, the ying to their yang, etc. And in this case this villain, that is not only dumb as bricks, fails to be what she needs to be because she has basically no connection to any of the three Identity plotlines. (okay she might be connected to the third N-Identity, but this is difficult to track.) AND she turns out to just being a lieutenant to a bigger baddie, at the last second, which is a huge let down.

Plus, the conflict and battle in which the identities converge at the end is with a no name scrub. I can understand it not being with the big baddie, or even the bigger baddie the villain serves, but it would be good if it was at least a named lieutenant we have already been introduced to.

It is very important that these things have relevance because earlier I mentioned the first trigger was her climbing up the mountain. That set off chain of events that would have inevitably, without the involvement of the village or villains or anything else, brought her to realize who she was eventually alongside Lorca. Perhaps not in the same way, but the trigger is still there as the mystery is revealed. The second identity and third identity and the villain has to, in some way, have direct connection to everything in a way it doesnt, or else the entire journey she takes from the mountain to the city of slaves is just a side story of her second identity plotline instead of the primary story of her primary identity that started unraveling all the way at the beginning. The other plotlines would have no purpose and we will have had Act 2 and Act 3 for no reason, because those acts, those actions and journey undertaken, is about the second plotline, not the first. The one started second, not first.

Overall I'd rate it 3 smashing out of 5. So close to 4/5, but with the SCs completely screwing up the pacing, the forest dude, the disconnection towards the plot in the end, the joke villain... just everything comes close but doesn't quite hit the bullseye.

I'm out with a smashing!

 Here are some additional notes I made along the way. These didn't end up in the review because I felt they were too isolated and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

Random Notes:

Early action sequences could use work. I can follow it and visualize it, but the people fighting seem dumb or half asleep. Its group fights play out almost like a final fantasy turn-based game instead of a messy jumble of people trying to beat the shit out of each other when they see an opening. Like, for example, you got a dragon, a wyvern, and the MC. The MC screams, the wyvern turns away from the dragon (exposing its neck) and goes for the MC (no longer giving the dragon attention) and spends seemingly thirty full seconds attacking the MC. Not only does this make me think the wyvern is retarded for failing to recognize which threat to prioritize and how to adjust itself but was the dragon masturbating? He just stands there forever going "ah, this is awkward. so a mortal has come. I really didn't need her help but... I guess she wanted to? Not sure why, is she dumb? Ah, she is about to die. maybe I should do something. anytime now. hmm... i forget what I had for breakfast. was it broccoli? Oh wait the human is going to die, maybe I should help? Or maybe not, why do I care? Oh, I know I'll just not be as stupid as the wyvern and recognize who the bigger threat is? Yeah, that's what ill do. I'll go for the wyvern. But I won't go for the neck, that would be too easy to bite through. Besides, that's only something 99% of the animal kingdom does and I'm more civilized. So, better idea, ill use pokemon BODY SLAM!... whats a pokemon? I don't know. damn, they still sitting there fighting, I should probably go and do that thing now like participate in the fight. Yeah, good plan. Let's do it." 

In contrast, the fighting scenes between the MCs, or rather their training, are great. Mouthwatering and put a lot of attention into it, both in terms of the action, pacing, and choreography, and the characterization behind it. The fighting scenes in act 3 are also great, though felt a tad bit rushed so the choreography described wasn't as clean and crisp as the training period.

4th interlude scene 2. What is the point of it? Other chapters are filled with sequences that are EXTREMELY random, sudden, contrived, and offer nothing while having the grace of a shark trapezing over a pool of gymnasts. Example: All of ch14 except for Sasha.

Chapter 20 - What is the point of this question or scene when Wren has never questioned her lineage? She has always been self-assured so to suddenly have this entire thing thrown at her where she is unsure of who she is is... very VERY random and far too late to start doing. There hasn't even been anything thus far to make her question if what she knew is wrong. There has never been anything short of complete confidence. This is comparable to Bilbo Baggins reaching all the way to Smaug and suddenly going "Am I actually a hobbit or a dwarf? Who am I?" after he has told men, trolls, orcs, goblins, gollum, spiders, elves, men again, and Smaug, with full confidence, "yeah im a hobbit." If anything she needs to start actively questioning her lineage and poking holes in her reality very early on because we got seemingly an identity crises here that she is either ignoring or doesn't realize she has. "Yeah I got magic!" "How?" "DONT KNOW DONT QUESTION IT JUST BECAUSE SOME FOREST FAE DRUID SHITTER GAVE IT TO ME!" "You were doing magic in one way or another all the way in act 1-" "DONT QUESTION IT!" "Okay girl, chill..." "fuck you"*lorca chimes in from a mile away but is so far away his voice is squeaky* "YEAH!"

Wait a minute she has been in an egg for 300 years?! When was this mentioned????

Nice as the side history snippets are at the beginning of each chapter, its a hell of a lot of pieces to put together... Cant there be a chapter towards the end that puts them all together in a coherant fashion? Going chapter to chapter on Wattpad just to read these singular paragraphs is a paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain!! D:

HOW MANY FLASHBACKS ARE THERE?!?!?!?!!?!?!

A few statements puzzle me. You have statements made or objects presented and people react to it or come to conclusions, and in all of this I felt puzzle pieces were missing. There was a jewel presented as being hidden at some point and though people react I'm just like "okay? so what? what does this thing matter?" or a statement is made where the MCs conclude what others want from them and I'm thinking "you came to this conclusion from what?" and then there is something about her being in an egg for 300 years, that so far as I can tell, has never been brought up before. So when was she in an egg, how did she find out,  when were the rest of us going to be informed, and why did she never react to the initial information until now? So while I am fine with there being unknowns, its another matter for the MCs to come to conclusions we, as readers, cannot follow. The only people who should react or come to conclusions without us ever being able to follow the train of thought within acceptability are side characters. Never primaries. Hell, do it all day long where the SCs have knowledge and info we do not, but when that same treatment is done through the MCs then you have lost readers.

If you are interested in learning to write, mastering the craft, want some really good reads, or just to chat and hang out with a mature group of adults, feel free to hit me up for a smashing discord book club that has lasted years.