May 20, 2025
Edit: OMG I forgot to include Kevin Pekin the goat I'm a fake fan time to seppuku
Alrighty shitposting off, critim on. Now where the hell do I even start?
Forewarning: I'm gonna be biased with this one. Your story just hits so many of my personal sweet spots like the stuff I love in Frieren, Ancient Magus Bride, and Pandora Hearts. Not that this is some mash-up fanfic of them or anything. It fully stands on its own. But cus it shares that same kind of emotional depth and fantasy vibes, it's basically made for me. So yeah, take everything I say with that in mind.
Now, onto the actual story. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and it kept me hooked. The pacing starts out slow and thoughtful, but once it gets going, it GETS GOING.
The prose is also super interesting. Def different but in a way that totally works. Idk if you always write like this, but the style fits the tone of a melancholic high fantasy perfectly. Like to a T. It's poetic without being too hard to read. Makes me jelly >:(
The character writing. GOD THE CHARACTERS. The dynamics feel incredibly organic. No dialogue feels wasted, and everyone talks like a real person with their own emotional baggage and unique ways of looking at the end of the world. Even lore-dumpy moments (like Henox explaining the magic system to Gretel) still feel engaging cus the character voices stay strong and consistent.
The side characters too. I love that most of the characters aren't just black or white. They're all varying shades of gray, and it makes them feel real. And I say this as someone who's REALLY picky about character writing.
That said, I do have a few small nitpicks. These were first pointed out by Lolo, but I wanted to echo them too.
The start is VERY slow. Like, I get that it's intentional and sets the tone. Some of the early side characters, like the elf twinks, didn't leave much of a lasting impression. Their main purpose seemed to be setting up the reveal that Henox is a necromancer (through his BO) but beyond that, I couldn't tell you much about them.
Also, some callbacks to earlier characters later in the story didn't quite hit. For example, during the brambles-nom-nom-everything day, Kemishi's death felt a little... off? Like, it's clearly supposed to be a big, dramatic moment, but to me it felt a bit forced. It seemed like someone else probably could've handled it, and the whole thing existed more to trigger Henox's hand off of immortality to Lennox than as a satisfying character payoff for Kemishi herself.
Anyway, fuck critim best anime ever cus author linked Kevin Penkin, Yuki Kajiura, Evan Call OSTs
~sam was here~
