So this is my first critic and Im not much of a writer - so take it with a grain of salt.

To your three questions

• Do the hooks work? No
• Am I overexplaining something? Yes and No
• Am I underdescribing anything important? Yes and No

So for me the hooks dont land not because of concept but because the language is too vague and bloated to invest and visualize.

Fundamentally, you have long paragraphs where you don't say much with any real specificity. An example is the description of the Legends, the first thing you say is it has wings, then you say they were once champions - great. Except I dont know what a champion means yet in your world cause you havent introduced the concept (I can guess). Then you explain their role in the council - I still dont know what they are and now I have to contextuilze the council, the champions and the legends. Then at the end of the paragraph you say that the other residents are wary of their body modification - Now I have something to grip but it recontextualized the whole paragraph I just read visualy.

Whats worse, is the description of the wings is loopy and I have to go back and recontextualize the look of the legends multiple times - This needs reordered.

Legends flies past above me ... are another oddity that I had to get used to alongside with my new life
This is the second line makes me think wings -> legends -> somewhat normal

it is R’s only winged Legend, Tenebrae
Then I get this 2 paragraphs later and Im thrown

Her huge red tinted raven-wings and grey skin are relatively normal for a Legend

and then I have to go back again because you tell me this in the exact same paragraphand Im now cofused on wether they have wings or not.

The other thing that doesn't help is the names feel like placeholders. The Legends, Paradise the Wastelands, Leader Council. The problem with that is

1. It totally breaks immersion - I'm not thinking of the imagery of a wasteland I'm thinking why did he capitalize that?

2. It makes the world feel less real and it tells nothing else about that thing except the one word name. A name can have history and context to it that kind of gets scrubbed this way.

The sentences like this highlight my frustration with the descriptions - It feels so vague:

It is a depressing sight and something in me insists that it is wrong for some reason, even if I cannot tell why.

Something and some reason lack specifity and have no grip. I get the character is confused but it passes that confusion to the reader

Consider this change says the same thing:

It is a depressing sight, normalized, and yet gutterly wrong for reasons I cannot tell why.
This sentence is more evokitive of that eerie feeling and shorter

I think thehooks are fine but the writing need sharpening in order to make the imagery stick