❀﹒Client: BlueBirdLegend

❀﹒Title: Legacies of Old

❀﹒Reviewer: katiegoesmew

❀﹒Review: 127/140

First impressions: 34/40

Title: 10/10
This title just feels like a Fantasy title to me, which works well with anything Harry Potter-related. And anybody familiar with Harry Potter will know the old often comes back to bite the new in the rear, so there you go. Perfect title.

Story description: 7/10
Grammatically, there's very little wrong with this blurb, and I think the content is good. You introduce the main character and the plot conflict without giving too much away, and that should pique a potential reader's curiosity. But there's a lot of awkward or jumbled phrasing that could be smoother, and improving the flow would strengthen your hook.

I don't think you need the first paragraph at all. It sounds like this is a reference to the game meant to appeal to players, but it could be off-putting for potential readers who haven't played the game. There's an assumption that a potential reader already knows the context. And, really, you don't need that. You're introducing your story, not the game, and while the game is important, I don't think it should be the first thing a potential reader sees in the blurb. Sell your story first and then add a note that this is a Hogwarts Legacy fanfiction.

But if you want to keep this paragraph here, the first two sentences appear contradictory. I think the third sentence conveys what you want the second sentence to say, so you can just combine the two: "But have we read deep..." Later, "was" should be "were," but I don't think either verb is the best choice here. Something like "marked" would work better, I think, because the "emotions and plot twists" are not the "journey to fame." They're pieces of that journey, if that makes sense. Also, in the last sentence, I'd change "didn't" to "don't."

Moving on, I'm going to refer to the individual chunks of the larger paragraph as the second, third and fourth paragraphs, and it wouldn't be a bad idea for you to put full paragraph spaces between each of them. So, right at the start of the second paragraph, "15-year-old" should be hyphenated. The following two sentences feel a little jumbled to me, but I think flipping the order and combining them would fix that: "Losing her foster mother took a large toll on her, but she has her foster father and knowledge on her side, and she won't let that loss ruin her magic experience."

For the last sentence, there should be a comma before "though," but this sentence feels a bit too anticlimactic for me. It needs more punch, more emphasis. It's too soft of a statement when the entire plot conflict hinges on what comes next. I've been looking at it and playing with it, and while there are many ways to make this a more powerful statement, I think there's a very simple solution. Just shift it into its own paragraph so it stands alone, add "But" to the beginning, and cut "though" from the end: "But something else will." Buried within or tagged onto the end of a paragraph, that doesn't do much, but set apart, it really stands out.

In the third paragraph, I like the first part of the first sentence, but the second part doesn't feel like it fits well, and since there's a statement about her past in the last paragraph, I don't think you need it here, anyway. Also, the "With a unique power" sentence feels strange to me, but it works great tacked onto the first half of the first sentence: "Romora is suddenly thrust into a dark plot with a unique power waking up inside her." Then splicing the second half of the third sentence with the fourth sentence flows really nicely: "She struggles to keep her new friends safe when she can't even find peace for a moment with all the evil goblins and Ashwinders she encounters in her explorations." That also gets rid of the "let alone herself" part, which feels off to me.

As for the last sentence of that paragraph, what is she "catching up" to? Is it her studies? A bad guy? That needs clarification, and I think however you do that will help with the flow here. This is another place where it feels off to me, but I think it all hinges on "catching up."

Addendum: I now know you mean catching up on her studies, since she's entering Hogwarts for the first time as a fifth year student. So, I'd say add "on her studies" after "catching up."

In the last paragraph, the first sentence doesn't sit right with me. A coincidence is something like meeting a person twice on the same day. I don't think battling evil goblins and Ashwinders while a unique power wakes up inside her counts as a coincidence. I think you're trying to offer the possibility that this is all happening to her because she's just in the wrong place at the wrong time, not because it's specifically targeting her. You could say that instead: "Is she just in the wrong place at the wrong time?" Or you could cut that entirely and start this paragraph with the next sentence: "Is this the path..." Either way, setting the last sentence apart in its own paragraph would add more punch and emphasis to strengthen your hook.

Oh, one final note. I'm not familiar enough with the game to know how closely you're following it, but I've recently learned that Wattpad considers character-insert fanfiction to be plagiarism. So, if you're using the game's dialogue word-for-word, or using the game's main plot as your story's plot with no modifications other than adding your original character, you could be at risk of copyright infringement. I know you've already stated you're adding your own plot twists, some small, some major, and a romance, so that makes me think you're probably safe, but I just wanted to let you know.

Cover: 10/10
This is a gorgeous cover. Props to @sulkytae for designing it. The blues and golds evoke a very magical feeling, and the imagery of an open book, a golden amulet, and a wand just enhances the magical quest concept, which I assume works well with an adventure game. The text is also perfect, with a great font for the title that has a touch of the old and regal about it but is still legible, sized to fill the blank space above the three items neatly. I love the way the title pops from the background. The book number and author's name are also clear. This just draws the eye in what I think is the right order: first the title, then down to the items, down to the book number, up and around to the author's name. Nothing of lesser importance distracts from things of greater importance.

First chapter (and everything that came before it): 7/10
Alright, starting with the info and graphics page, it looks like you're trying two different blurbs out to see which one people like better. I like the first one because it's more personal. It focuses on the main character instead of a general discussion of legacies, and so it feels specific to this story, whereas the second one feels like it could be used for many other stories.

Grammatically, it should be "In which" at the top, and hyphenate "15-year-old" again. You don't need the comma after "6," and "was" should be "is" in the second paragraph. In the third paragraph of the second blurb, I'd put a colon after "legacy" in the last sentence, then put the rest in quotation marks: "No matter who it goes to...there is always another who must fulfill it."

Then we get into the character introductions and aesthetics. I won't really comment on the aesthetics other than to say they have your unique touch, because I'm not a graphics person, and beyond knowing many people use a standard scheme and style, I don't really have the knowledge to comment further. Yours are different, though, and I appreciate that. It shows you've taken the time and effort to make something that's truly yours.

In the quote under Romora's aesthetic, it should be "Sebastian's," and "know" should be "now," followed by a comma. Also, the contraction "they've" technically works, but I'd spell it out as "they have" to really emphasize the contrast between the numbers of monsters she's killed versus the number of people they killed.

Moving on to Sebastian, the second to last sentence in his quote is a little jumbled. You could add a comma after "magic" and cut "means," or change "when" to "just because" and then add a comma after "magic" and "that" before "means."

For Ominis, in the second sentence of his quote, I'd hyphenate "boy-gone-bad" and cut "child." Then add a comma after "something" in the next sentence.

And now for the prologue. Short and sweet. I like it. There are some phrasing issues here, as with the character page and the blurb, but your grammar is pretty good, and it's very readable. Right from the start, your characters are very real and believable. I can immediately get a feel for the young mother who loves her daughter but has something weighing heavily on her. I assume from the blurb this is Romora's mother, and this is when her mother abandoned her. As for Romora, she's just a happy, adorable, oblivious toddler.

In the second paragraph, instead of "high red moon eclipse light," it would be smoother to say "light from the red moon eclipse high in the sky." Also, color descriptions like "tan-skinned" and "purple-colored" should be hyphenated.

You have some issues with dialogue tags, which is a really common area where people struggle. A dialogue tag describes the dialogue and is considered part of it. These are often incomplete sentences following dialogue, and if you see words like "he said," "she asked," "they shouted," that's probably a dialogue tag. Not every sentence following dialogue is a dialogue tag, though.

If the dialogue ends in any punctuation mark other than a period, you don't have to change anything within the quotation marks, but the first letter of the first word of the dialogue tags needs to be lowercase (unless it's a proper noun, like a name). If the dialogue tag ends in a period, however, you would change that to a comma and then make the first letter of the first word of the dialogue tag lowercase. So, the mother's first sentence of dialogue should be this (italicized to set apart from the feedback):

"Shh, mama needs to concentrate," the woman told her child, who she set down on the forest bed.

I also changed "was" to "she." You could also say "she had" or "she'd," depending on what meaning you want to show there. With the mother's next dialogue, she asks a question. So, the only fix this needs is making "the" lowercase:

"Can you see this?" the mother asked her child, showing the jar to her daughter.

The next two lines both start with "she," but the person "she" is referring to changes. So, for the second one, I'd change that to "her mother," because at first glance, it sounds like you're referring to the daughter again. And that's just something to watch as you write. You, as the author, know who she/he/they is referring to, but your readers don't. So, when I'm proofreading what I write, I try to keep track of the pronouns and look back to see who the last she/he/they was. If "he" referred to John earlier, but now "he" is supposed to be "Max," I switch the second "he" to "Max" so there's no confusion.

One other thing, which I noticed in the characters page but didn't mention before, is sentence structure. You often follow an "A, B" format, and sentences are often similar in length, so there can be a repetitive feel as I'm reading, even though the actual content of each sentence differs. The quotation under Romora's aesthetic shows this really well. You don't always do that, so I think it's probably something you don't realize you're doing. Just paying attention to it and trying to vary your sentence structure and length more would eliminate that repetitive feeling and add more interest to your writing.

But this is a good start. Sometimes, prologues are way too long, but this one sets the stage for Romora as a foster child who knows nothing about her past, and it also hints at her unusual magical ability. Also, slipping in the little detail about her constantly changing hair color is a nice touch. That really brings her to life. And the details about her mother's facial expressions and actions make her very real, too. Your descriptive detail of the setting is also great, so I can really see the scene.

Moving into the first chapter, you keep the character development and descriptive detail going, which I love. Your section dividers also make sense. Dialogue tags are still an issue, and there are a few phrasing things here or there, but overall, this is really good.

Most of this chapter is in the past tense, but you slip into the present tense a few times at the beginning of the chapter, so be careful about that. Consistency is important. In the second paragraph, "that's" could technically mean "that was," but I think it's more natural to read it as "that is," so I'd spell it out to make it clear this is in the past tense.

Starting with the last sentence in the fourth paragraph, you switch into all present tense, so that needs to be switched back into past tense, starting with turning "they've" to "they'd." Also, the sentence about what can change is a little awkward, especially with the "color of the previous" section. I don't think you really need that clause, anyway, because listing body parts like "face, hair, eyes" already makes me think of the colors changing.

And in the next paragraph, you can cut "currently" to make that sentence smoother. Later in the argument, "'cause" needs an apostrophe in front of it, because it's a shortening of "because."

When you go into the story about what happened at school, I'd clarify that the girls were teasing her about her hairstyle, or something like that, because later, when her hair changes color for the first time, I immediately thought back to this point and got confused. I'd assumed the girls were teasing her for her hair changing color.

There are some word swaps throughout, like when the Figs sat her down to talk about what was happening. It should be they "pieced together the cause," not "placed." When Eleazar "finely puts his wand away," that should be "finally," and "reasoned" is misspelled in the next paragraph.

For the book title, you could put that in single quotation marks or italics to make it stand out more from the dialogue in that same paragraph.

In the dream, it should be "brown-haired," and when Romora wakes up and her hair gets a description, I'd definitely cut "on" before "her shoulder," but that whole description there feels a little awkward, so playing with the wording more would not be a bad idea.

I'm really loving how you're building Romora's character, and the more I read, the more I think you're probably safe from someone saying this is a character insert fanfiction. Because you haven't even gotten to the game yet, have you? Everything here feels very original, and I love your writing style. If this continues, I'm sure the rest of the story will be just as original as the beginning.

*****

Digging deeper: 93/100

Cover & title: 10/10
See "First Impressions" feedback.

Story description: 3/5
See "First Impressions" feedback.

Grammar & voice: 15/20
The grammar issues I noted earlier continue, but they're still minor, so they don't really detract from the story. New things I noticed include problems with possessives, a missing word here or there, the occasional misspelling, that kind of thing.

When you convert a noun into its possessive form, if it does not end in "s," you add an apostrophe "s": mother's, daughter's, etc. If the noun already ends in "s," you just add the apostrophe, although from my understanding, it's sometimes okay if you add the apostrophe and an "s." But it's sometimes not okay, so I just stick with what I was taught growing up, which is just the apostrophe: dragons' (plural possessive), Thestrals' (plural possessive).

The missing words and misspellings are inconsistent, so I chalk them up to just typos or things you missed during proofreading (fister instead of foster, weel instead of wheel). There's one place where there should be a space before an opening parenthesis, and there isn't: "...covering in Puffskein hair(and a stowaway..."

And there's one place where I think Romora's dialogue is split. It's either that, or one line is missing a dialogue tag to tell me who of the three people in the scene is speaking:

"That symbol-"
"What's that glow?" She asked, pointing to the symbol.

If that's all Romora speaking, I'd put it all together like this:

"That symbol...what's that glow?" she asked, pointing to the symbol.

There are three sentences I noted that are a bit jumbled or missing something, and the first is this one: "That paid off well was what Sebastian bitterly thought whenever his mind wandered back to his childhood days." Since the first part is what he thought, and you've used bold text to show thoughts before, you could do something like this: "That paid off well, Sebastian bitterly thought whenever his mind wandered back to his childhood days."

There's a sentence that uses "flicker" and "flickering" within a few words of each other: "...slight flicker of nervousness flickering..." I would just cut "flickering" to eliminate the repetition. In context, you don't really need it. And there's this another bit of repetition later where you have an accidental back-to-back "year to," so you just need to cut one: "...this year to year to speak with her."

And there's this sentence: "Disregarding it as he turned to look back at the new girl, eyes following her as she moved to stand by Professor Weasley." The first "as" makes things weird here, but you could just add a comma after "it" and cut that "as," and then you're fine.

As for your voice, I love your writing style. It's very clear and understandable, and you do a good job with balancing dialogue and narrative, building your characters, and describing scenes. The A, B sentence format I mentioned in chapter one goes away on its own, which tells me you're learning and improving as a writer, and I love to see that. This seems like it will be a fun, interesting story.

Plot & pacing: 10/10
I did a little Googling to check the plot of the game, and in chapter two, it seems like you're following it pretty closely. I don't know how closely, exactly, but the modifications of Romora being Fig's foster daughter, her entire background, and Fig's recently deceased wife don't look like they're in the game at all, so there are some definite additions and changes going on here. You've set Romora up to take the role of the playable character in the game, and the story is moving along at a good pace. Then, chapter three goes into Sebastian's perspective and his background, setting up his curiosity about Romora thanks to all the gossip going around the school (love how you do that, by the way), and that certainly isn't in the game. So, it seems like it's a good mix of canon and original material blended seamlessly to create your story, and while you're not rushing from plot point to plot point, your insertion of background information doesn't drag the pace down, either.

Characterization: 20/20
I already said you did a good job with this in the prologue and chapter one, and that continues in chapters two and three. Even George has a distinct personality during his brief cameo, before, um, you know... 😉

Romora seems like a pretty typical 15-year-old girl—as typical as a foster child with no memory of her background who just discovered she has magic can be, anyway. She has a good relationship with her foster father, and her determination to overcome obstacles in the past means she's just as determined to catch up to the other fifth year students so she can succeed at Hogwarts. She misses her foster mother, of course, but she won't let the grief drag her down, and she's managing the magical surprises fairly well, all things considered.

Sebastian's perspective tells us more about Romora, because the gossip has already piqued his interest in her. His analysis of the fear and anxiety in her eyes when she enters the Great Hall and gets sorted is very telling. She's managing herself as well as she can, but she's still a teenage girl with a lot going on. And Sebastian is a teenage boy with a lot going on, too. He's also trying to hold it together while he's dealing with his sister's illness, so that sets him and Romora up nicely for a relationship where they'll learn to depend on each other instead of trying to go it alone.

I assume, anyway.

Eleazar, Miriam, and Romora's mother are all well-described, too, even though Mirium is dead, and Romora's mother is absent. Your use of memories to tell the reader about the two women is done very well. And, of course, Eleazar is the steady father figure who is trying to do the best he can for Romora. I'm sure there will be more from all three characters as the story progresses, along with more fleshed out, complex side characters.

Harmony within genre: 15/15
You listed the primary genre as Adventure, Mystery/Thriller, and I can see all of that. The journey from home to Hogwarts has already had some, um, shall we say, difficulties? And Romora's magic is nothing short of mysterious even without considering the vial with the strange symbol and the ominous goblin problems in the magical world. You listed Romance as a secondary or subgenre, and that's already set up well with Sebastian in chapter three. So, yes on all counts.

Originality: 20/20
As I've said from the prologue on, this feels very original to you, even though it is a fanfiction. Romora's detailed background is all you, and while it looks like you'll be basically following the game's plot at first, you're making modifications here and there, and I know you already plan to deviate from it completely in the second book of this series. Your descriptive detail is natural and paints a picture of the characters and the scenes, and all in all, I'd say this is a fun, engaging story.

*****

Final thoughts:There's a lot Romora doesn't know. Her background, for instance. Who her mother was. Why her magic took so long to appear. But with a supportive foster father and a healthy dose of determination, she's sure she'll catch up to her new classmates at Hogwarts and have a great school year. It's not a problem when she starts seeing magical creatures and symbols nobody else can see. That's strange, but no big deal. The dragon, though...that could be a problem. That could definitely be a problem. Being nearly eaten en route to school isn't normal at all. If this is how her school year at Hogwarts begins, she might be in for a wild ride.