Nothing is more smashing then tea and patriotism!

The Gunner and the Florist is actively ongoing while also being edited. There is a lot of attention and love given to the story. I read about 8 chapters out of 15. Overall I think the story is good enough that I would have no problem reading everything available on my own time, but there are enough problems already to bring up that for the sake of a review I don't need to go any further.

TLDR; Command and Conquer: Woke Alert London

Main Characters - Meh - The Main Characters (MC) are Ren and Lennox, the sniper and the florist respectively, or as I thought of them: Mr. Bean and Chuckie from Rugrats. The story starts with Lennox/Chuckie so lets start with him. He runs a flower shop with his 1-hour-workweek mother, has an estranged father, and a little brother. At first he isn't bad, concerned with finances and his brother a lot and is both logical and imaginative in the way his POVs are portrayed. He takes iniatives like making potions or something to make a little extra money and he has clear motivations, desires, and wants as he wants to get enough money to take his brother and flee the country. Not just because his parents blow all the income on stupid things, but because he is in the middle of a warzone. (more on this later.) The second guy, Ren/Sniper/Mr. Bean, is, well, a sniper for a not-gang of gang-like rat-tag terrorists/rebels/something fighting an urban war in the middle of london. He has a mysterious past that no one gives a shit about and is entirely motivated by proving himself to Daddy-Nod and tearing down the world because his emotional capacity doesn't extend past angry, being insulted by something that no longer exists, and shoot-first. Despite how shallow this sounds, and is, it is still interesting purely because the shoot-first thing is funny and it works well as a polar opposite of Lennox because Lennox starts off deep and needs to be made a touch shallower over time to keep from being obnoxious while Ren starts off shallow and needs to be made deeper over time to garner interest.

There is also some interesting chemistry. To put it simply, Sniper-dude is trans or almost-trans or transitioning-trans or whatever its called (I really dont know). Whether he wasn't satisfied as a woman and wanted to be a dude or if he thinks boobs is the way to go, I have no clue and there is very little information given as to which direction he is going so I'm going to continue calling Ren a man for the time being. He thinks of himself with those terms so I'm going with that. And this is brought together with Lennox because the side-hustle I mentioned includes making the drugs and being his supplier for his 'daily fix'. (This is how the story treats it, which is just weird.)

However the number of problems is... well its a lot.

Lennox starts off fretting some but he never extends past it in a meaningful way. He is, in every way, Chuckie from Rugrats. Which gets old very quickly. I understand people who are prone to assuming the worst and thinking there is more behind everything than there is, but there is nothing else shown about Chuckie.

Ren starts off with promise seeming like a decent military officer, and supposedly earned his way up, but he has all the mental fortitude, physical ability, and sheer luck of Mr Bean. He comes across as the most incompotent moron of everyone in the story, failing to do anything and everything at every opportunity, while being 'told' as the elite. It wasn't funny, it was just dumb. Or as a great movie once said "Never go full retard!" I will get more into it later.

This is a slightly advanced problem, but I think the author shows enough promise that it is worth bringing up. Problem: The POV never really changes. Sure, supposedly, it does. But consider this: What would the POV look like between Sherlock Holmes and Bugs Bunny? They'd be different right? The facts presented, the thoughts they have, the things noticed, the number and kind of adjectives, the details, the amount of sheer flowery artistic poetry-whatever used in story to sound really emotional. All of it would be different in a way that reflects who they are. But this story doesn't. The same kind, and amount, of flowery artistic poetic hot-air and pacing is used between both. Its good when its Chuckie, as he is an imaginative and flowery person, but for Mr Bean? Mr Bean is military, elite, a sniper, an officer. Any professional would be thinking fast-paced, lots of action verbs, moving on, logic over imagination, keeping his cool and composure at all times, and attention to detail where its only the details that matter to him.

The POVs also show the same events twice. This... was painful. I understand the need to show an event from both perspectives, but this needs to be done once, only once, and on the most important moment, and no more. Anything more is so slow its actually painful.

Then lets get to the pink elephant in the room. The whole trans-thing.

Yes. I get the idea of being inclusive and writing something with a specific group of people in mind. I get the idea of making a satire/parody with your political beliefs being up front and center to express it without getting into an actual argument with someone. And while I tear apart oh so many stories for just being parasites ruining a good story with obnoxious political bullshit with no purpose but cheap pandering/virtue-signaling to the latest 'thing'; this story, to its credit, actually pulls it off in a simple and somewhat intelligent manner. Having one being the rare-supplier to a semi-wealthy customer in a warzone where supplies are scarce, is good. It is not Einstein-level complicated trying to pull something out of your ass, but nor does it need to be. Its simple but solid, which is exactly what it needs to be. It uses the world and story to explain itself instead of fighting against the story. *Chef's Kiss.*

However. However, however, however, I can't help but wonder who the intended audience is. Because the story centers around a trans-dude and his supplier, while also devoting every possible CONCEIVABLE opportunity to being obnoxious, and here we have a disconnect of two separate goals.

If the intended audience is a minority group then consider what a minority group wants. Every time I have ever heard someone speak, it is the same message: we want to be treated normal. And a normal person is invisible, average, where no one gives a shit and couldnt care less. This story succeeds in part, as no one but the main characters actually give a shit about them, and there is not one single instance of mental, physical, legal, spiritual, economical, environmental, political oppression of any kind presented. Hell, the government DOESNT EXIST! There is nothing that CAN oppress. It is sheer anarchy while two not-gangs fight over a city. Do whatever you want, rape pillage and plunder to your hearts content. There is no laws.

However the problem is Mr. Bean has a victim-complex with people who don't exist, angry at a government long gone, and takes the slighest look as an oppurtunity to scream and lose his shit and shoot people in a fit of rage about a problem never presented nor shown. This is, by definition, strawman argument. Making a person up in your imagination just to yell at it. If he had a problem with the idea of not being able to get his drugs through normal legal recourse, then dumb-dumb maybe you shouldn't have helped overthrow the government to begin with or been happy about it because technically now by the very lack of governmental existance the way he is doing it is the legal recourse.

A second problem with the idea of the intended audience being the minority group is that the story spends so much time being angry and preachy. I'm pretty sure the intended audience already thinks the same way and just want to feel normal... so who are you yelling at? Why are you preaching to the choir? Is your goal to really make them feel like normal people?

Now, lets reverse it. If the intended audience is not a minority group, but is a satire/parody to educate the majority, then its still pulling it off poorly. I get the idea of preaching, I am a preacher and a christian, but something I have learned (and am always learning myself) is to "Pick Your Battles", don't be obnoxious, and the execution is key. This screws up in all three ways because it picks every battle to be preachy, it gets obnoxious with the angry-strawman bullshit, and and it fails the execution because never once is actual and credible discrimination shown to validate any kind of message. All we get is angry Mr Bean. Plus, you will alienate everyone if you ever make your message override the story, which it thankfully hasn't (almost has at times), and needs to be very carefully analyzed.

With all this said the author really needs to consider who the intended audience is and the execution of reaching what that audience wants.

Side Characters - Semi-Smashing - The Side Characters are interesting. To some degree they have individuality and personality, enough to make their scenes have something to them and give reason for their existence. However half of them act like incompetent morons, when what the story tries to tell you is that they are not. Yeah, that doesn't work. Despite some truly braind-dead moments, I liked the idea behind Daddy-Nod that Mr Bean thinks of as his father figure. He gave me a lot of Kane feels, but with 1% of the competence and charisma. Nice attempt but really needs to be made competent and bigger than life to pull this kind of guy off. They managed to show slightly different sides of the main characters and to push and pull them out of their comfort zone, but only somewhat. enough to give some credit for the attempt, but not enough for successful execution. I liked where it was going, but could use a touchup.

Word Usage and Grammar - Semi-Smashing! - The story was a lot of fun to read. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the pacing needs work as the scenes don't seem to know when the stop being so damn flowery and vomiting up so many adjectives. It especially needs to be toned down 10x more on Mr Bean, as I mentioned before, as his POVs should reflect who he is and his personality and the things he notices.

World Building - Smashing! - So the world is in the future, you have robots and war and shit going down, civil war in london as the government is gone, and someone is singing "london bridge is falling down" while its in flames. There is chaos and the story executes this nicely. It is juicy as shit. Some information is given, but only what you need. It is mostly in the eyes of the main characters, which is good. You have no idea what is happening outside of London (whether communications are down or no one cares.) which is good as we really dont need to know. You have people grasping at the last vestigates of civitilization and you have people having fun as not-gang anarchists to Daddy-Nod. I loved it. I think it can still be better if it continues to embrace the chaos, but so far its good.

Plot - "Never Go Full Retard" - The plot gives me mixed signals. At first it was really good, letting us know the characters and their positions in the conflict and very quickly sets up the ability to meet. This was good.

Then they meet and everyone forgets to do the thinking.

So basically Chuckie has to go to a party with mom and brother to meet dad after years while he is trying to make ends meet. Mr Bean is assigned a task to murder Chuckie's dad while undercover but also as a sniper.

1. Snipers don't get undercover at parties, they just sit outside waiting for the signal after having already been given a picture of the target. So this was a contrived way to force them to meet at the party and really shows how dumb they are. Its fine if he has an agent on the ground as his eyes and ears, but not this. Dumbass.

2. A dumbass sleeper agent openly says military-phrasing shit to him in public and he does the same back. Yeah lets just blurt stuff out and get caught. Dumbass.

This two instances of stupidity lead to the two characters meeting over food, which was cute, but then Mr Bean needs a 'fix' and texts his supplier to meet.

3. We are in the middle of a mission, but he cares more about drugs then his mission. Dumbass.

The supplier and him meet.

4. Mr Bean has his gun out so the supplier can clearly see he is a sniper-guy. Dumbass.

They do the transaction anyway and go their seperate ways.

5. Chuckie forgot to ask for the money. Dumbass.

6. Mr Bean the 'elite sniper' is easily seen from the street by Chuckie, who didn't even know to look from the street. Dumbass.

7. Chuckie while seeing Mr Bean getting ready to do the snipey, has to talk to a local guard/officer (there are police without a government??!?! What?!) and then climb up the ladder onto the roof to confront Mr Bean about getting his money. The guy has a gun and is on a mission! Dumbass.

8. Leading the guard to him. Dumbass.

Mr Bean pulls out his gun in turn but Chuckie knocks it away in plain sight of the guard.

9. The guard just goes "yeah nothing to see here, must be my imagination" like the most retarded level NPC from any stealth game. Dumbass.

So the guard goes back to the street and continues his patrol. Mr Bean tells off the guy who caught him and tells him to leave-

10. instead of shooting him or knocking him out. Dumbass.

and Mr Bean returns to prepare to shoot his target. But Chuckie wrestles him off the roof.

This is now 10 straight instances where it takes one utterly STUPID character moment after another to pull off something. I am going to put this nicely and simply. When you have to rely on incompotence to get a plot point accomplished, you have failed. I dont know how anyone can take this character seriously on any level and illusion of disbelief doesnt account for contrivances and utter retardation.

Overall I'd rate it 3 smashing out of 5. There were things I think the story did well, and I think the story has a lot of potential, but the weaknesses are just as strong as its strengths. The ideas are good, but the execution needs to be looked at, and the author cannot be afraid to scrap entire chapters like she seems to be to achieve what she wants. There are better ways of accomplishing things, or perhaps you need to reconsider what you are accomplishing if you can't.

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.