This is my last contribution to Althanas. I hope you find meaning in that.

I think the story has a terrific ending and one I didn't see coming, which I appreciate. I will say that I think that though Maddy's frustrations and anger were clear throughout the thread, I didn't get enough foreshadowing that what she wanted was to die. I also am hard pressed to imagine that she IS dead, after talking about just how far she has gone to try to die and how creative she has gotten. If only the explosion would have killed her, then Scarlet's little squeeze-and-burn shouldn't theoretically be enough. As such I would have loved a little cliffhanger post by Maddy to articulate this. I will also note that one of the stranger things was Maddy's repeated comments that were very "forward-thinking" at times, such as caring enough to cover her tracks with the airship, going about getting it, caring about losing the airship and being mad about it, planning a flesh-one and all that jazz. It seemed in direct contradiction and actually made the ending even more off-putting and unexpected.

The strong point for you, Andy, is character. It has been and likely will be, and with other characters as well. It's an advantage of first person. Your use of internal monologue is a terrific tool of creating an emotional link between reader and character, and I hope you never lose that ability. Amari, you did well along this storyline as well, but you did feel like the support character in this thread (and very well may have been) and at times it made your character a bit more distant. I am confused about just how much this corruption affects your judgment and how the vomit of bile affects your child. It almost seemed like you were on the cusp of miscarriage, and again, would have been an interesting ending note.

On the mechanics side, I have a few things to note. The first is, quite honestly, there were at minimum two dozen errors that I could have gone back and found examples of. The tense jumps from your writing, Andy, are jarring and need to be cleaned up for the sake of clarity and effect. There were typos, homonyms, missed words, punctuation errors, etc. This is excluding style choices that affect structure that are permitted within reason. As mentioned with the narrative your contradictory tone for Maddy with her forward-looking mentality actually did the opposite of foreshadowing her suicidal agenda, which I think knocked you back a bit. Dropping a bit more hints beyond her wanting to destroy and be mad at her supposed friendships would have been helpful. The ending, though enjoyable and unexpected, felt too abrupt, and again didn't feel like it would kill you given how easily and quickly it just took a bit of magic to do so.

The last note I'll make is, from all you've spoken about how Maddy looks in Briarheart form, I didn't notice any real note of how exactly you made yourself inconspicuous enough to sit in a tavern with plantform and pointy teeth without freaking people out. I don't think the usual "this is a magical world and people have seen some shit" would be sufficient in this case, as you're pretty terrifying, and you've made clear in other works how Hyperion had to stay hidden.


Hope you found this helpful. Find me on FB for questions. I'm signing out for good.