Jan 04, 2025
Had a few days to gather my thoughts and reread a bit. First off - congrats on finishing! I enjoyed the story and I did like the ending. I thought this was gonna be a more upbeat adventure anime kind of story (I was 100% sure Apollo was gonna come back and save the day in a future chapter) but Oliver's death made it clear what kind of story this was gonna be. Not that that's a bad thing - it's like going into Rogue One with the happy-adventure-serial expectations of the other Star Wars films, but you end up seeing a different, but just as good kind of story. The ending makes logical sense, concludes Sprout's arc, and leaves the door open nicely for a second part where Sprout wanders the wastes and finds some peace (hopefully!). My favorite part of the story was the escape from the embassy.
People have already given some great feedback. The one point I want echo/beat a dead horse about is giving time for the story to breath. Not much you can do about that given the constraints, but I wanted to bring it up because the actual story structure and plot points are well done. Well, maybe the gang could've been captured/betrayed one less time, but overall their journey makes sense, each character has an arc, and something I really like is that each character has their own opinion on Sprout's arc. On paper, everything gels nicely, and the execution was the best it could've been considering the contest constraints.
To offer some different feedback - the one part of the worldbuilding I struggled a bit with was the anime/online references. I get that this is a weeb contest after all, but it's set up to be this Fallout-esque post-apocalyptic wasteland, so it's a bit jarring when characters say incel or go on /a/. I think integrating those elements more into the wasteland setting would be good - maybe chapter 1 has Sprout get into the scrape with Apollo, spend her daily 15 minute allotment on the lone village computer on message boards discussing anime/online stuff nobody else in the village gets, and then stares off into the sunset Luke Skywalker style - not only does that integrate the weeb stuff more, but also adds to Sprout's character. I did like Sprout, but I understand the feedback.
Given the constraints, writing a similar type of story, but with just two protagonists (probably just Sprout and Lea) might be more effective. Each character will have more time devoted to them compared to four, the story beats would still work, and Lea's inevitable death (which could still happen at the same moment) would come as an absolute surprise gut punch.
But those are just ideas (and it's a credit to your story that it's made me think so much). Like I said, the story was the best it could've been under the circumstances. What always impresses me the most when reading other stories is when there's a well-crafted, well-thought-out story structure and character arcs, and it's clear you came up with good ones for NNN.
Best of luck!
Big fat cat tats
