Ok, I did your review a bit different (I hope you don’t mind) because I actually read your story for the H&V contest before I starting helping Sasha with reviews, and I didn’t want to reset my progress, so I just did from where I was up to (luckily I saved up a few chapters to binge read). So I’m going from episode 4, which I had to re-read anyway.
- I really have liked your use of overlays through out. It must be so time consuming to perfect all that and then to have your music sync up with it.
- I like the characterization you’ve used with the hair and eye colors. It’s simple but effective
- The scene in the alley, I think the characters could be spotted a bit smaller. I know they’re demigods, but if you use the car for reference, it doesn’t look like they are that much in front and therefore they should be a little smaller
- In the same scene, once Jaxon is lying on the floor, he still kinda looks like he’s floating a bit, so you might want to adjust his spotting as well.
- I notice when you pan over to him, it looks normal again. So I’m not sure if you spotted him a second before the pan, because when you go back to skull, I can’t see Jaxon’s head floating anymore
- I like how you introduce customizing the mum naturally. So like the phone call starts and then you say let’s take a moment to make her look like you.
- This is not really a big deal, but the music while Trix is breaking up with Skull is a little upbeat for a breakup scene…
- Episode 5, in the bar/club Zara’s elbow is behind a Siv, while he is sitting in the background - so it’s just a little layering you need to fix up
- Another minor layering thing, but to me it looks like skull is a behind Cribb and Blue, so when his eyes light up, the overlay should be behind the girls, but in front of him
- This is not really anything to do with the review, but I’m low key annoyed that Jaxon got annoyed with my questions. Like how dare he show up and claim he’s dying and flee to the water and then refuse to explain? I mean, good characterization on your part, but man I would have loved a choice to throw something at him for not telling me anything
- Another thing with the layering when Trix finds them at the beach is that Rosalie is infront of Jaxon. I think based of off how confused Rosalie must be, added with the fact that she’s probably intimidated by Trix’s beauty, she’d be more inclined to move upscreen left and back a layer, as if she’s backed out of the conversation, but still listening to them
- When you did Trix’s flashback to her night with Skull, I think that’s the first time I noticed you using close up zooms and it really looked good. You should use them more!
- Leave the choker on makes me think that was some kind of clue, especially considering she wasn’t wearing it preset day, just a little observation I made
- When Hale and Rosalie are talking at the beginning of episode… 5 or 6? I can’t even remember which one I’m up to… I notice the speechbubbles are on the screen but not the characters? And then I saw one character’s arm stick out with an animations, so I get they’re in a different zone off screen. So just check that again, because I saw an elbow, so you might need to remove that animation.
- However, I like that you slipped in the story title there. I was wondering if that would become more prominent. Because I understood the name to have something to do with Rosalie drowning (so it was like she was deep in the water), but I was waiting to see if you would connect it more.
- And now I’m noticing a lot more zooms. Maybe this was something you perfected in later chapters? In which case, definitely go back and add some more so your story keeps that advanced level throughout
- I’m a bit anal when it comes to grammar so I noticed with Trix and Jaxon talking about no one calling him papi, that Jaxon says “your right” when it should be you’re lol
- I’m up to episode 8 and I was going to leave it there and post your review but damn, that was a good cliffhanger. I’m like “is Trix gonna hypnotize her or kill her or what?” so good job with that because now I’m reading on.
- I’m really impressed with how you made Hermes, especially when his eye color changed green when he got annoyed with Hale.
- Another thing that’s not really related to the review, just more of an observation, but I read on to see what happened to Trix, and I feel like I’m half way into the episode before we’re back to that scene… Which was actually really smart of you because that whole flashback was super interesting, and I had actually forgotten about the Trix thing until we actually got back to it. I’m not an expert, but I’m willing to bet that helps your reader retention
- I really like how you made Rosalie think he was a mermaid, because I saw your fanmail a lot of readers thought this too. So that was a nice little easter egg. Very clever
Overall, your story is really great. You have an interesting plot (before reading this in H&V contest, I’d never seen anything like it), you give your characters personality, you have choices that matter, you use almost every tool episode has given us to make our stories extra wow (overlays, text effects, filters), yet you don’t over do it either. I can see this being a really long story too, because there’s so many different things happening, so there will be a lot to cover. It will definitely keep you busy.
I also notice that your new cover represents the story much more than the old one. The old one more represented the title, but this one now tells me a lot more about the plot.
I think it’s only minor things you need to go back and look at like spotting and layering (which I know are the two most painful things when it comes to directing).
Just another note as well, whenever people are asking for stories with diversity, I really think that’s a good place to promote yours because all your main characters are diverse and it’s not like they’re diverse just for the sake of it either, like they all had a purpose. So yeah, definitely do some promo on those types of threads