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Ah! He caught me! I'm totally his cousin three times removed on his mother's uncle side five times removed. Worry not, young man. I shall show you the ways of smashing!
I took some time to read the story "Composer" by _KelWhite. I read half of it (20 chapters), as it is a reasonable length and I think it is good enough to warrant finishing at a later date. My reflections may change based on the events of the second-half of the story, but the first-half is important for its ability to keep people interested enough to get that far, and I feel I have a reasonable grasp of the story.
This story is published on multiple platforms for money so I will be holding it to a higher standard than I typically do.
TLDR; A bit of a slow, rough start but is an absolute blast when its characters are together. It is an original fantasy story that promises more.
Characters: Smashing! - The characters vary between richly done, hilarious, coolly-stoic, and (unfortunately) bland. The story seems to be, at its core, as a normal growing-up archtype you see from the 'Hero's Journey', as the primary MC starts off with well developed flaws derived from inexperience and goes through trials to become a better, more complete person that along the way ultimately bring benefit to the world through the plot. However the journey feels flawed because the MC falls into the 'reluctant hero' stereotype. Every step of the journey is forced upon her, every growth is with her reluctantly accepting it against her will, every chapter is another day of the MC doing things she doesn't want to do when she would much rather just be off at the farm lazying about. The inner reason for this constant reluctance is not explained so well that I can tell if it is stubborness, laziness, or basic teenage angst of "My blessed life sucks, woe is me!"
This is tied directly to one of her main flaws she has to learn to get over, but unfortunately it is also a flaw, that by its nature, makes her bland. It takes a very long time for her to have any dreams, desires, wishes, or positive-things to seek after for us to cheer her on for, and even when she finds a small thing to chase after, she immediately rejects every possible oppurtunity to grasp at it, until the story forces it upon her. She is reactive in the extreme. This saps away any desire I had to cheer her on and rather started cheering on other characters as they actually had things they wanted and were willing to be proactive about. They had agency in their narrative and made choices, while the MC makes... none. She makes no choice about anything at any time, depriving us of rich character development, understanding, and ability to relate.
The primary main character can be a bit bland at times, but it is made up by the surrounding characters. They balance her out beautifully. One guy is humble and awkward but tends to do things without thinking and stumbles his way through life. One guy is basically what would happen if you combined Loki's mischief and Tony Stark's wit. (So much so that comedy is LITERALLY his religion.) One guy is an extremely stoic soldier that shows by action-over-word to have a heart of gold. (This makes the captain by far my favorite, so well done.) and then the MC is as normal as a teenager can get with all the angst and self-pity and lack of discipline one could expect from a teen. Individually they are good but when you put them together they are an absolute blast as everything about each character conflicts in some way with the others in unique and understandable ways. It is a well balanced cast on a level I would expect from a "cartoon team" show where even the loss of one can ruin the dynamic as they would miss something as a collective. Like Justice League, Teen Titans, Avatar, and on.
