You cannot outrush the Smash!

This week I had a look at 'Stars Ascending' by I read all of the chapters currently up. (20)

TLDR; If you like Supergirl, Lucifer, or Jupiter Ascending and love triangles you would be fully on board with this.

Main Character: the kind of Mary Sue - Typically when a Mary Sue is mention it is with distaste. I cannot blame anyone. I've read true Mary Sue stories and they are . But this character manages to narrowly avoid the pitfalls of being a bad Mary Sue. You have a lot of trademarks. Seemingly no flaws, no real character growth until much later, being told she is awesome, loved by everyone just because she is awesome, rediculas powers, is prophesied to be basically greater than god, and then most of all the universe/story bends over backwards to plop the solution into her lap. (Almost literally as people/solutions seem to teleport.) But the MC manages to pull this off and become the good, shall I say, even the healthy kind by a Mary Sue. 1. Not being a stuck-up brat where the bullshit has gone to her head. 2. Not abusing the Mary Sue powers (except once, which managed to come across more as immaturity rather than universe-level abuse, allowing for actual character growth and not be one-dimensional) 3. the Mary Sue focuses on other people, comforts others, cares about others more than herself, and generally makes good moral choices. Most of the time. there are a few moments of being seemingly bipolar, but I think thats more how the scene was written than a long-term character trait. I dont think its intentional. Anyway, combine all these things and you have a character that is basically Supergirl/Superman. and you know what? It works. It took a little bit to get into, I won't lie. Moments sent red flags through my mind, but I pressed on and when I reflect on all of it as a whole I don't see a toxic Mary Sue that just wants to self-insert and abuse everything, but Supergirl. The comparisons are even uncanny. Without spoiling much, as this is all seen early, she is adopted by parents with humble means by literally landing on their doorstep (like superman), has birthparents of higher birth who died saving her (like superman and seen in the prologue), has Marvel/DC level powers, has normal people for friends, works on a farm (do I really need to say it?), and focuses more on doing what is right and moral and being humble than much else. Or boys, because its a romance.

One real problem I have with her is that with all of the good and bad and sheer 'universe-level-perfection' comes a lack of agency and growth for a long time. She never steps up and takes a decisive action or decision of her own that pushes the story forward for a long time. I don't consider super-normal decisions like going to a bookstore to hang out as decisive action, agency, power within a narrative, nor growth. Visiting other characters, yes, but most of the time people, solutions, animals, and things come to her, depriving her of agency and choice and leaving her tossed in the stream for a long time. But at the same time her innate powerful nature could have been too much early, as I will describe later.

Some characters can avoid this pitfall of lacking character growth by being flat character arcs whose role is to influence the world around them and show others the philosphical truth the story is trying to make, rather than grow themselves. More or less being the teacher to the pupil. This is where I would expect her to fit, but she doesn't really make effort to do this either.

Overall she was cool. I don't think the bipolar swings are intentional, but I quite like the MC. Humble, nice person, and if it wasn't for the powers and plot armor and prophesies and heavy hints, you would think she is a completely normal person. Kinda like the girl from Jupiter Ascending.

I know I spent a long time talking about it, but that is because it is not a clear cut character to consider and is crucial as she makes or breaks the story with every scene, with one or two exceptions, being from her direct perspective.

Side Characters: A well-handled mix of normal and Overpowered Bullshit Cannons - One thing that helps the MC from seeming toxic is the agency, value, and rich characterization of the surrounding characters. They support the MC well. Encouraging MC to do things she may not want to do at first, conflicting with the MC, offering choices and plot for the MC (eventually), and being emotional boards for her to bounce with. They push her forward in understanding herself and things around her. They deprive the MC of a lot of agency and power for most of the story, but it also feels necessary as if the MC were to take control too early of her own narrative, I fear she might have been too powerful to balance the story. One thing that also helps the story is that eventually some of the SC are just as bullshit overpowered as the MC is supposed to be, sucking away some of the god-level-Mary-Sue from her and instead putting her in a league of equals. Kinda like, again, Marvel or DC.

Overall I quite liked the SC's. They were clear, never confused, fit specific and distinct roles, and had clear personalities. They were almost exactly what was needed to balance the story out. The way they were written in a few scenes can be a bit out of character, insane, and bipolar, like the MC, but I think this is not intentional and is just more how the specific conversation was allowed to flow.

World Building: A slow burn that reaches boiling before you know it - At first there is basically no world building. The prologue left me confused if it was sci-fi, middle earth, narnia, modern earth, an ancient earth, or whatever the hell it was, but after a few chapters as technology is presented I slowly realized it was modern day earth, give or take a decade. Beyond that there isn't much need for world building for a long time. It sounds like America, possibly middle to middle east states, but I don't remember if it is confirmed where and it doesn't matter. The story does start to take on world building, or should I say mythos building, at some point and it is exactly what the story needed to flesh out the MC and SCs. Could have been done earlier and at a faster pace, as the agency and strength and understanding of the characters and the pace of the plot grows in direct proportion to the world building, and it took a fairly long time to really get the ball started, but it doesn't feel like much of a big deal as the chapters before then are... shall I say casually fun? No real story but completely normal things teenagers would do day to day, introduces characters well, and is pretty fun and *cough* steamy.

Grammar and Word Usage: Confusion at the paragraph level - Grammar itself, within the sentences, was fine. No problems there. The word usage was easily understandable. Great. Yet if you were to look at the higher level, in how sentences were structured within paragraphs, it becomes confusing. Typically paragraphs are a single topic discussed by multiple thoughts (sentences). The author makes the paragraphs as more of a time-table where any number of different topics can be put together based more on the amount of time used from one paragraph to the next. Action, thought, narrative, description, time and scene and location shifts, all are combined. You CANNOT speed read. You have to, slowly, read every single word to be 100% sure you didn't miss out on some necessary micro-detail because this is like combining soy sauce, ketchup, mayonaise, strawberry shakes, and milk in the same container. It was funny talking with the author in my confused state trying to figure out where I missed an important 5-word sentence to explain what was happening now, but I imagine some can be highly frustrated by this.

Plot: All together solid but a bit slow - Everything else described above influences the plot directly. Scenes are good, fun, and offer a slow boil. You get to know the variety of characters, I never confused anyone, and there is a fair bit of mystery hinted that have interesting pay offs. The slow pace was necessary to get the SCs value up to the MCs level so as to counter-balance her, and once the ball really starts rolling it feels much faster. Still, there are some scenes where I was left sitting there wondering 'What value does this offer? What did this chapter contribute to the story? How did this conversation push the plot forward?' The story has a number of stereotypes that are known for working and promise drama including: basically a love-triangle (between Tom Ellis, Kara Zor-El, Jason Momoa, and a random snake(maybe... the thing is stalkish)), bad boys, the ever present need for some sexy person to get wet at every oppurtunity, the peer-pressure friend, and dog sidekicks.

I've never been much a fan of romance, steamy things, but I found the story fun. It reminded me a lot of shows I enjoy with romance that is paced well enough to not make me cringe.

Overall I give it 3.5 smashing out of five! The story is balancing itself out more and pacing itself better as it goes. Originally I was thinking 2.5/5 after a few chapters due to just the MC, but I saw potential and was pleased to see vast improvements over course of the story. I see further potential for 4/5, but also worry that if some things are not handled with thought and care and attention, it can lose the momentum it has.

If you value romance more, you may find it even more than 3.5/5, as romance rarely does things for me. So romance fanatics will likely find it 4/5.

I'm out with a smashing!

If you are interested in learning to write, mastering the craft, want some really good reads, or just to chat and hang out with a mature group of adults, feel free to hit me up for a smashing discord book club that has lasted years.