[1311] Something different: The boy who follows behind

Hi team!

I'm back for more help.

This is a frame story and retelling of the three little bears or I guess more like a coda to that home invasion story. I intend it to be a part of the hacky fantasy webnovel I'm writing. The whole project focuses on being more in control of voice and tone.

My goals for this are to establish where I stand within my genre, what authorial lineage I want to work within, and to establish the author reader relationship isn't what the audience is used to (with webnovels, the audience gets a huge say. Authors are expected to respond to comments, and some bow to the desires of the audience, shipping characters etc.) On to the text:

For Reading

For Line edits

My questions:

1. One other set up that has been suggested is having the MC and the other character talk through out the three little bears story, disagree about how it should go, and talk about stories there instead of book ending the main story with the discussion
2. I would like the eyes and teeth to be symbolic of listeners and storytellers respectively, but I am unsure to how to make that pop?
3. With the dark/horror elements how does that land? I'm not a big horror boy, so I can't really judge that stuff well. Was the amount of description for the "boy" good, too little or too much?
4. With respect to the use of threes, does that hold up OK or was it just a dumb detail to a reader?
5. Did the distinct voices of the other character, MC Hadrian, and third person authorial voice all come across as separate?

Last one:

1. I'm just full of gumption, but I'm still a big dumb horse. Can I fix myself?

From the past two submissions I would have like 3900+2500 words left, but no doing reviews is for chumps. So I did this critique as well 2700ish